Users’ delight

Calcutta, Nov. 18: The Centre has directed the Planning Commission to explore ways of giving incentives to state governments to facilitate open access in power distribution by January 2009. This reform measure will enable consumers to select power distributors of their choice.

The government has asked the Planning Commission to work on the special incentive structure to promote competition and bring in choice for consumers.

Power industry sources said a directive has already been issued by the Prime Minister’s Office in this regard. “The decision to operationalise the open access system depends largely on the state governments as it pertains to the distribution segment, which is the state purview,” they added.

Introducing open access at the distribution level has already kicked off. While 16 state electricity regulators have notified open access guidelines according to the date set by the central regulator, another six have also submitted the draft guidelines. These norms spell out the tenures of introducing open access and the roadmap to be followed.

The Electricity Act, 2003 enables competing generating companies and trading licensees to sell electricity to consumers when open access in distribution is introduced by the state electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs).

Under the Act, the SERCs were supposed to notify regulations by June 2005 that would enable open access to distribution networks in sub-section 2 of section 42, which stipulates that such open access would be allowed, not later than five years from January 2004 to consumers who require a supply of electricity where the maximum power to be made available at any time exceeds 1 megawatt.

Section 49 of the Act provides that consumers who have been allowed open access under Section 42 may enter into an agreement with any person for supply of power on such terms and conditions, including tariff, as may be agreed by them.