UP power privatisation makes little progress

With the UP power workers blocking the visit of private investors to Anpara C, the privatisation process in the state has received a setback.

With the government on the backfoot, the privatisation of five distribution companies has come to a standstill. Principal Secretary (Power) Atul Gupta told Business Standard, "At this point we are discussing with the Centre the transition finance aspect, which is payable to the companies who may take over."

Although he said it is premature to talk in terms of money, but from "our point of view, this is a forward movement and we are not at a standstill". But there is nothing happening on the ground.

Although the programme of visiting Anpara to survey the common facilities, which the Anpara C project will have to share with Anpara A and B, has not been officially shelved, the two earlier attempts of June 16-18 and June 29 to July 1, proved to be abortive. The next date has not been finalised.

It is clear that the situation is such that a forced visit will lead to a general strike by power workers and the NTPC staff have shown great reluctance to manage the systems in areas of tension.

But Essar Power, one of the four bidders for the Anpara C project, has written to the government, expressing a desire to arrange the visit expeditiously because their technical consultants say it is not enough to see the railway sidings, etc. since many of the facilities are to be shared and how they are to be shared and what the conditions will be are not clear till the visit takes place.

Therefore, the company wants the visit to be arranged before the request for proposal can be submitted.

However, Reliance Energy, another bidder, has not submitted any letter. Amongst the other two, Lanco Kondapalli of Hyderabad has urged that the visit should be organised and the fourth, AEC-Torrent Power Ltd of Ahmedabad, is not showing any interest.

Reliance is not saying anything, alleges Shailendra Dubey, the power workers' leader. This is going to impact the privatisation of the power sector throughout the country. Even now the process is on only in Orissa and Delhi and nowhere else. In UP this has been stalled, claims Dubey.