AIPEF opposes franchisee system for power distribution

18 June, 2012

The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has decided to oppose the introduction of franchisee system in power distribution with the help of the general public.

PADAMJIT SINGH and Shaliender Dubey, Chairman and Secretary General, AIPEF, said in a press conference in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, that in the franchisee system neither the government nor the common consumers have been benefited and the franchisee is fleecing both. They demanded a high-level inquiry by power experts and economists into working of already franchised cities before proceeding further to privatize the power sector. They alleged that the franchisee system is an unholy nexus between bureaucracy, politicians and industrial houses and it is a bigger scandal than coal gate and 2G spectrums.

Franchisee is utilizing power utilities money for its own day-to-day expenses. DISCOMS are being forced to resort to high cost power purchase, and then supply it to a franchisee at much cheaper rate. Even then it is not even passing the dues collected on account of arrears and delaying monthly bill of DISCOMS on one pretext or other.

The experiment of unbundling of state electricity boards and privatization of power sector has completely failed and losses of utilities have increased manifold. The losses of power utilities have crossed 2 lakh crore. Now to bail out Discoms, bonds with state guarantee are being proposed.

Now, Shunglu Committee have made the sweeping proposal for franchising distribution in 255 cities on the basis of population and input energy without considering the prevailing level of AT&C losses. The Committee has restricted its franchising proposal to the creamy areas only and admitted that the Discoms would be left with rural areas only.

All the proposals mooted by the Government in name of reforms in power sector are meant to give benefits to only industrial houses. It may be bailout package to Reliance Discoms by Delhi government or sale of cheap power to franchisee for further distribution in cities. The net result will be power consumers in cities will be left at the mercy of private players and state Discoms will supply power in rural areas with state government subsidies.

The Federation will hold seminars and meetings at all state capitals to highlight the failures of so-called power sector reforms and loot by big industrial houses such as Reliance, Jindal, Adani, Torrent and Tata.

The other office bearers of Federation including A K Jain, Venkat Shivareddy, Viney Pandey, P K Khare, and G B dabre, Anil Vyas, O P Pandey Yash Pal Sharma, V S Bidri, Anil Kumar Singh and Satya Paul were also present in press conference.