Chandigarh, Apr 25 (Agency) All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) on Tuesday said that the Center has asked the state governments to pass on 50 per cent of the losses incurred by Discoms to consumes and has sought the comments of the states by May 1. AIPEF spokesman VK Gupta, in a statement issued here, said that EAS Sarma, former power secretary, in a letter to Punjab Chief Minister as well as CMs of other states, has demanded that the Centre, not the consumers, should bear a portion of Discom losses. He also urged that states should take up with the Ministry of Power unilateral diktats issued by state from time to time, which in turn impose a huge cost burden on the consumers. According to the statement, EAS Sarma wrote that the stand taken by the Ministry of Power was not only unilateral but it also ignored the fact that a large portion of the losses suffered by Discoms was attributable to obligations imposed by the Centre unfairly on state power utilities.
The statement alleged that the Ministry of Power has directed the state Discoms to absorb electricity from centralised solar power generation plants, from which, the unit cost of electricity delivered at the consumer’s end was high due to the low capacity utilisation of large solar plants. As a result, the State electricity utilities were often forced to deny themselves the option to procure electricity from cheaper sources. AIPEF also alleged that the recent coal shortages faced by thermal power plants arose as a result of the centre’s mismanagement of domestic coal supplies and railway movement of coal, pretending that it had nothing to do with the crisis, the centre imposed an obligation on the states to import coal; some of the mines were owned by domestic big business houses. According to AIPEF 80 per cent of the cost of electricity delivered by Discoms was attributable to the cost of generation of electricity. The centre’s approach to privatise electricity generation has resulted in the states having to enter into regressive power purchase agreements (PPAs) with private companies leading to steeply increase in the average cost of electricity generation. When some states tried to renegotiate the PPAs to reduce the costs, the Ministry of Power tried to prevent them from renegotiating the PPAs.