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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | States seek legislative changes to to punish those drawing excess power from grid-Debjoy Sengupta & Mitul Thakkar

States seek legislative changes to to punish those drawing excess power from grid-Debjoy Sengupta & Mitul Thakkar

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published Published on Aug 3, 2012   modified Modified on Aug 3, 2012
-The Economic Times

KOLKATA/AHMEDABAD: Power sector officials from Ahmedabad to Kolkata are fretting over the indiscipline of northern states and are seeking legislative changes to imprison those responsible for drawing excessive electricity and putting at risk power supply to law-abiding states. 

Most officials in eastern and western India say that the unprecedented breakdowns of power supply this week were avoidable. Officials are angry with the Northern Regional Power Committee (NRPC), the body that facilitates inter-state transmission and maintenance of units that supply electricity across state boundaries. 

"We have repeatedly written to the NRPC to take desirable actions and precautions for the smooth functioning of the grid. In majority of our quarterly meets, we have discussed this issue and communicated with NRPC. Besides overdrawing, NRPC often bypasses grid protection systems," an official with a state utility in western India said. 

In Kolkata, officials were upset that troubles in north India blacked out their state. 

"The Electricity Act of 2003 should be amended to incorporate provisions for legal actions against errant utilities which should include prison terms for the culprits," a top executive from the West Bengal power department official told ET. 

"We have decided to make a representation to the union power ministry and will want stricter provisions in grid discipline and a set of changes in the grid code including legal actions so that failures of such proportion do not occur in the future," said M K De, West Bengal's power secretary and the chairman of West Bengal State Electricity Transmission Company Ltd. 

Northern states have firmly denied any misdeed and said they were not responsible for the grid collapsing twice in 36 hours. But officials in other regions are not convinced. 

"Power overdrawal even when the grid frequency had dropped to an alarmingly low level followed by a fault at one of the supply lines in the Northern grid resulted in the collapse that darkened half of India. Yet, they continue to over draw albeit to a lesser extent," alleged a senior official from the West Bengal power transmission department. 

An official in Gujarat said the state has a surplus generation capacity, but supplies are snapped when northern states pull out excessive electricity from the system. 

"Despite being power surplus, supply gets disrupted in our region as northern states draw unscheduled power. However, we are not able to explain our customers about issues related to grid every time. Despite adequate power supplies, we could not offer any assistance to the north as their grid itself proved inefficient. It would have been a national level disaster if the western region had also gone dark," said a Gujarat government officer.

Apart from Gujarat, and West Bengal, other states such as Orissa and Maharashtra are also demanding stricter grid codes, including legal action against utilities that overdraw power.
Officials allege that states that regularly overdraw include Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. 

"Uttar Pradesh is considered the most notorious and is known to over draw on a regular basis. The northern grid has capacity of 40,000 mw and if states pull more power than the grid can manage possibilities of a collapse rises," said the official. 

"Grid failures used to be a regular feature before 2003. A set of schemes - Availability Based Tariff and Un-scheduled Interchange Exchange (UIE) brought down the grid failure drastically. In fact, a failure like Tuesday's has not taken place in the last 10 years," A C Sarkar, managing director West Bengal State Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (WBSETCL) told ET. 

"UIE allows over drawl but at rates that are higher than regular rates. There are instances when some utilities in North India were forced to buy power at Rs 18 per unit through the UIE scheme simply because of their heavy requirement of power and political compulsions. However there is a limit on the absolute quantum of power a state can draw from the grid but states keep over drawing power," a power department official said.

The Economic Times, 3 August, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/energy/power/states-seek-legislative-changes-to-to-punish-those-drawing-excess-power-from-grid/articleshow


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