Report of Indian Institute of Public Administration ... - Ministry of Power

State Reports (Vol.-III)
Study on `Impact of Restructuring of SEBs’
DISCOMs which in their present condition may not appear to be ideal for private
sector participation. Alternative models for improving the financial and
operational efficiencies, public-private partnership in network management
activities, SCADA, DMS application, customer relation management (CRM),
etc., may require consideration by the State Utilities.
v) For distribution reforms to lead to appreciable/demonstrable impact in delivery
of quality power supply, a road map for network upgradation and reliability of
sub-transmission and distribution will have to be accorded high priority. This
should be preceded by detailed study of the condition and problems of the
network.
vi) Meetings of the MDs and the key personnel’s of the distribution Utilities should
be considered as an annual feature by the Ministry of Power. This may provide
useful inputs from the different programmes undertaken by the Utilities for
system improvement and improving the financial health of the Utilities and
create an competitive environment.
vii) Promotion of energy conservation measures, both from the Utility side as well as
at utilisation end and promoting the use of energy efficient pumpsets in the
agricultural sector and introducing tradable incentives such as interest subsidy on
purchase of energy efficient pumpsets should also be considered.
viii) To avoid the cascading effect of the power systems fault, measures to enhance
grid security must be devised and separate funds should be earmarked for
devising and implementing the appropriate islanding schemes for DISCOMs.
Although this may not be right time to introduce the MoU mechanism for making
them achieve the predetermined productivity and other efficiency targets, yet some
steps are needed to promote competition among the DISCOMs. Unless some inter-
DISCOM competition or incentives are built, there would be no pressure on them for
under or poor performance. There would be no tangible benefits to consumers in terms
of low prices or benefits. Utilities which are ready to introduce better pricing for
certain categories of consumers such as industrial, commercial, etc., should be
encouraged to do so. In this direction, a positive move by the MPERC to consider
Differential Retail Supply Tariff (DRST) for DISCOMs was dropped as the State
Government conveyed to the Commission its intention in its letter dated 7 March 2006
“to have similar tariffs for various consumer categories in the foreseeable future”. It
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