The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has demanded that in the larger interest of the power sector and consumers, the Electricity (Amendment) Bill should not be brought in, and the failed experiment of privatisation be withdrawn.

Besides, the compulsion of coal imports should end and expert power engineers should be posted in top management, the AIPEF said.

A delegation of the AIPEF on Thursday met Union Power Minister Manohar Lal in Delhi and submitted a memorandum to him in this regard.

Through the memorandum, the Federation has demanded that in the larger interest of the energy sector and electricity consumers, the proposal for the Electricity (Amendment) Bill not be brought now and the failed experiment of privatisation and urban distribution franchise be withdrawn.

AIPEF chairman Shailendra Dubey said in a statement here that the Federation has also demanded that in view of the continuously increasing production of coal, the instructions to the power generation houses of the states to import coal compulsorily should be withdrawn.

The Federation has said that to make the energy sector strong and self-reliant, expert power engineers should be posted to top management positions in all the power corporations of the country.

The memorandum of the Federation stated that in the last few years, the Central Government tried to amend the Electricity Act 2003 through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill. The main objective of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill was to give licenses to private houses in the field of electricity distribution and allow them to use the networks of public sector electricity distribution companies.

The noteworthy thing is that it was not mandatory for private sector power houses to provide electricity to all categories of consumers. Naturally, private sector companies would use the network of government distribution companies to provide electricity to profitable industrial and commercial consumers, which would worsen the financial condition of the government sector, which was neither in the interest of the power sector nor in the interest of poor domestic consumers and farmers.

The memorandum states that Urban Distribution Franchise was experimented in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and some other states but this experiment was a complete failure and the agreements of most of the Urban Distribution Franchises have been cancelled.

Similarly, the entire electricity distribution sector in Odisha state privatised. This experiment also failed miserably and all the licenses of Reliance Power were canceled in 2015. But unfortunately, again in 2020, the entire distribution area in Odisha has been given to Tata Power. Despite this, there has been no significant improvement. Therefore, the time has come to withdraw these failed experiments of privatization and urban distribution franchise.

It is also said in the memorandum that Coal India Limited is claiming that the production of coal is continuously increasing. Coal India Limited also claims that there is enough coal available for thermal power plants in the country. In such a situation, it is not appropriate in any way to make it mandatory to import coal for the thermal power plants of the states for the last few years.

Recently, through an order, the Union Ministry of Power has extended the order to import 4 per cent coal till October 2024. The time has now come to withdraw these orders.

According to the memorandum of the Federation, the only objective of the government and the power engineers was to provide cheap electricity to the general public. It is noteworthy that the cheapest electricity is available from the state power generation houses, the electricity received from the central sector is somewhat expensive in comparison and the most expensive electricity has to be purchased from the private sector. In such a situation, if cheap electricity is to be provided to the common consumers, then the generation companies of the states will have to be further strengthened and the generation companies of the states will have to give new projects in more quantity.

Apart from this, the time has come to re-review the 25-year expensive power purchase agreements made with private houses and the power distribution companies of the states should be allowed to review such expensive power purchase agreements.

The Federation demanded that the Union Power Minister, in order to make the power sector of the country self-reliant, efficient and capable, it is necessary that expert and qualified power engineers be deployed on top management positions in all the power corporations of the country.

The Federation expressed hope that in the process of making the power sector strong and self-reliant, the Union Ministry of Power will from time to time make a process of consultation with the Power Engineer Federation and consumer organizations.

The Federation delegation included Federation Chairman Shailendra Dubey, Secretary General P Ratnakar Rao and Chief Patron Padamjit Singh.