Yet, the way things are turning out, the regulator is nothing more than an extended arm of the government, in most cases doing precisely what his master wants. This should not be a great surprise, since the regulator is usually a retired government official, and his staff are also government officials on loan; usually, most of them do not have domain knowledge in what are specialised jobs.
Most states that have electricity regulatory commissions, for instance, have a retired chief secretary as the regulator; indeed, the job of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) chief was kept vacant for around a year when S.L. Rao demitted office, so that the outgoing power secretary could take over.
Now it gets worse. Just a few days ago, as this paper pointed out, the ministry of power came out with a draft tariff policy which even specifies the depreciation rates and plant load factors applicable to the sector
