| Delhi's power reforms got a bad name last year when the tariff hike took place, but this year, the good work done by the private sector distribution companies (discoms) has been overshadowed by the poor job done by others such as the Delhi government-owned Transco which is responsible for organising power supplies for the capital. Since July 2006, the capital has been facing load shedding between 500 MW to 800 MW every day, and assurances of improved supply conditions have become like the Met's weather forecasts. During last year's shortages, people were assured things would be fine this year. |
| To prove that load shedding has considerably reduced, statistics were released by Transco, that from 550 MU, shedding had been reduced to 176 MU. |
| Simply put, 3 per cent energy consumption was lost due to power shedding in 2001-02 and this percentage dropped to 0.84 per cent in 2004-05. To justify the shortfall, it was also said there was an overall shortage in the northern grid. Everybody knows that the northern grid faces a shortage during summer. Not only has Transco been unable to procure electricity, it even managed to get the demand estimate wrong by 300 to 400 MW, in its monthly demand assessment. |
| How have other power utilities in north India reacted? A cursory look at the data available on the Northern Region Load Dispatch Centre's website shows that managers of the Punjab State Electricity Board had arranged for more than 800 MW from open access transactions in March 2006, to meet the shortfall in June. But Transco was content having 200 MW although the daily shortfall was 500-800 MW. |
| Another issue is the failure of the Delhi government to increase power capacity. Land for the 1,000 MW Bawana plant was acquired a long time ago, but the DDA continues to come up with some specious explanations for not getting the issue cleared. If in the last five years no additional capacity has been added, how will the government meet the peak demand which is expected to rise to 7,000 MW by 2010, besides the additional demand for the Commonwealth Games? |
| Lastly, even if you assume the government will be able to procure power from outside, do we have enough transmission capacity to bring in 1500 MW of power? Recent experience shows that merely adding additional capacity in any region will not help unless there is a reliable national grid for transporting uninterrupted power from one region to another region. Such a national grid, is still far away. |
| Ironically, even the success of distribution companies today is critically dependant on finding new reliable sources of power supply. |
| The author is a former chairman of an electricity regulatory commission |
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