muddle all the way!

letter sent to press on 18th July, '03 - not much has changed since then:

After years of debate, it was generally decided that the way out of the crisis situation faced by the key power sector, in nearly the whole of the country, was privatisation. Almost a decade was then lost pursuing privatisation at the wrong end, leading to any number of fiasco’s, the most infamous amongst them being Enron, and our own Cogentrix. Finally, it dawned on the powers that be that unless the revenue end, that is, ‘distribution’ was privatised, there can’t be much progress. Power being a natural monopoly area, it was then correctly decided that regulation had to be introduced, and accordingly, bodies like the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) were instituted.

The KERC’s mandate, one thought, was to facilitate the process of take over by the private sector speedily, so that they could in turn effect the system correctives and ensure quality power supply to the consumsers. The transfer arrangement is certainly no child’s game, and, while every effort could be put in to make it as equitable as possible, there’s always the chance that it could land up slightly skewed in favour of the service providers (Hopefully, lessons have been learnt from the ‘Tannirbhavi’ deal, which landed up considerably to the advantage of the IPP, and the Orissa experiment, where reforms remain stalled largely because of the arrangement being too heavily skewed against he interests of the service providers). However, that should not come in the way of moving ahead, keeping the ultimate objective in view. Unfortunately, however, that is exactly what appears to be happening in Karnataka. Quite as stated by a KPTCL official recently, the KERC is today acting more like a consumer forum.

It is very correctly said that ‘costly power is still cheaper than no power at all’. And, when you take into consideration the cost of ‘quality’ power, you must compare it against the current tariff, to which must be added the costs of installation and maintenance of gensets, inverters, converters, emergency lamps, candles, match-sticks, and what have you. Further, once the system correctives are effected, there will always be the scope to lower tariffs, where the KERC has an important role to play. Also, if a service provider continues to charge too high, now with the new central enactment, any set of people can team up together to meet their own demand, and say good-bye to him. This is in fact what a lot of business establishments are already doing, and a factor that will continue to act as an effective deterrent against profiteering by the service providers. No business, whatever its position, wants to lose clientele.

All in all, what is required today is for the KERC to stop nitpicking, and change its outlook to take on the role of the facilitator that it is meant to be.