Shinde all praise for Bengal power sector

The union Ministry of Power has lauded the West Bengal Government for cutting down the transmission and distribution losses to less than 15 percent and subsequently the ministry have taken a cue from the state policy while framing the new law regarding the electricity theft.

"West Bengal has emerged as a model state by cutting down T&D losses to 14 percent where the national average hovers around 35 percent, and hence in our endeavor to bringing it down to 15 percent nationally, we have taken certain things from them and included in the new policy for power theft," said Sushilkumar Shinde, Union power minister.

West Bengal government has enacted an anti-power theft act to put culprits behind bars if the situation has to be improved.

The other measures which includes replacement of defective meters, replacing of electro mechanical meters with electronic meters, better load management and better vigilance also added to the reduction of T & D losses.

"The states would have to enact an anti-power theft act like the West Bengal. The state boards can save up to Rs 1,000 crore annually by cutting down T & D losses curbing the power theft," he added.

Last year in the Electricity (Amendment) Act, the union government explicitly made electricity theft a cognisable and non-bailable offense since as it is one of the major contributing factors for power shortages.

In addition to this the distribution licensees have been empowered to disconnect the supply of electricity upon detection of theft.

The minister also said that in bid to achieve the Eleventh Five year Plan, where a capacity addition of 80,000 MW is planned, already orders have been placed for 65,000MW and the remaining would be placed by the end of this fiscal.

"Out of 9 proposed ultra mega projects, we have already awarded 3 projects through the competitive bidding process, this shows our seriousness and commitment towards fulfilling the plan objectives," Shinde told reporters in the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

The government is also planning bring down the threshold limits for the mega power plants. As of now any thermal power plant above 1000 MW capacity is treated as mega power pant and in case of hydro power units the minimum capacity is 500 MW.

Regarding the proposed initial public offering (IPO) plan of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) the minister said that they are monitoring closely the market conditions.

"Definitely we are concerned, but at the moment there is no plan to defer the issue," Shinde said.