From correspondents in Gujarat, India, 10:01 PM IST
A city-based consumer research organisation Tuesday urged the central government to hold the electricity companies accountable for frequent power cuts and load sheddings in several states.
The country is facing six to seven percent power deficit during normal hours and 12 to 13 percent during peak hours. The western region is the worst-hit, said the Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS) in a representation to the ministry of power.
The state-run power companies have not adequately added to their capacity during the past decade and depended mostly on power purchase from independent producers, it added.
In 2007-08, Gujarat topped the power-deficit states with 26.7 percent shortage during peak hours, followed by Maharashtra at 26.4 percent. Gujarat could feed only 8,885 MW against the peak demand of 12,119 MW.
'Why should consumers countrywide be penalised for the poor performance of these companies?' asked the CERS.
The CERS said distribution companies should be penalised and compensation be taken from them for the affected consumers.
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Electricity generation, as a state subject, rests mostly with state electricity boards and very few private producers. Due to no confidence in the paying capacity of the state govts.to whom much of power generated is sold, private players remained deterred to enter in powr genertion despite so called 'liberalization' policies (read: normalization).Primitive distribution methods and universal corruption in distribution have led to colossal power thefts going on for decades. Moreover,the costing and profit calculations based on commercial returns are not favourable. These methods must change and powr be viewed as a social and economic benefit. Chage will need to be revolutionary and is hardly goig to be possible, and we have to live with chronic power famines, and high-cost production will characterize our industries which therefore cannot compete in international markets with their products and worse, imports will become more attractive for domestic market.
Power is one of the most vital raw materials for all economic development. The multiplier effect of a MW loss of power for any reason is not just the commercial price paid for it, is inestimable, but quantitaively issomewhere between between the maximum and minimum value of the benefits in terms of industrial output lost, even executive time lost due to the disruptions attributable to unavailable power, and so on.
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