Mumbai, March 16 (Bureau) State-owned non-banking financial company REC on Wednesday said it has partnered with the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC India) to improve the performance of discoms in the country. “EPIC India has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with REC and REC Power Development and Consultancy (RECPDCL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of REC to enable an evidence-based approach to improve the electricity distribution utility performance by designing innovative policy interventions for pilot and evaluation,” REC said in a statement issued here. Under this partnership, in addition to providing research and evaluation support, EPIC India will collaborate with REC and RECPDCL to provide a platform for knowledge sharing on international research and policy innovations through its nexus of leading international experts.
The MoU will enable the parties to work together towards improving discoms performance and efficiency with focus on the four core areas of knowledge sharing, access to high-quality data analysis, policy innovation and evaluation and training and capacity building, it said. “This partnership provides us with a framework for future collaborative projects that can help improve performance of discoms while bringing down financial losses,” RECPDCL Chief Executive Officer R Lakshmanan said. He further said that the company aims to leverage EPIC India’s data management and analysis expertise to improve the planning and execution of existing and new policies for discoms. Commenting on the development, EPIC India Executive Director Sidhartha Vermani said, “Through this partnership, we aim to conduct evidence-based research through rigorous evaluations to answer critical policy questions in the power and related sectors in India. We will also conduct training and capacity building jointly with REC and RECPDCL on evidence-based policy making.”