Govt rolls back proposals in draft power Bill, drops subsidy abolition

First made public in April 2020, the Bill is yet to get the Union Cabinet's approval

The Central government has decided to roll back several proposals introduced in the draft Electricity Bill, 2020. The Bill will no longer have a provision on abolition of electricity subsidies.

This would also impact the Centre’s commitment to introduce Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in the electricity sector. In the latest round of changes in the Bill, the proposal of DBT has been dropped too.

The Centre, which is pushing reforms in the power distribution segment, had proposed to remove the term ‘subsidy’ in the first draft of the over-arching Electricity Bill last year. It had instead proposed DBT in electricity,