Sartaj Singh banking on ‘clean image’ in MP Assembly polls
Employees of state electricity departments from all over the country have crossed swords with the Union Ministry of Power which has come out with a revised draft of the Electricity Amendment Bill, enabling the consumers to switch their power suppliers as they do for telecom services. The reformist Bill is likely to be tabled in the winter session of Parliament next month.
All India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPEF), with over 15 lakh membership, has threatened to go on strike on 8 and 9 January next year against the Centre’s move. The federation has termed the changes proposed in the Bill as a matter of serious concern as this, according to it, will concentrate all powers in the electricity sector in the hands of the Centre and eventually lead to complete privatisation of power distribution in India.
The Electricity Amendment Bill, 2014, was introduced in Lok Sabha in December to amend its 2003 precursor and was subsequently referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy. The committee gave its report in September 2015. The revised Bill is now circulated on the basis of recommendations of the committee and consultations. The ministry has sought comments on the revised draft, which seeks to separate carriage and content businesses.
The Bill provides for more than one service operator to supply power to a consumer in one distribution area. This, the government hopes, will give consumers an option of changing their power supplying company or utility based on their service efficiency.
The AIPEF has submitted its comments on the Bill to Union Minister of State for Power, R.K. Singh, demanding that the revised draft be sent back to the committee and the federation be given a hearing to present its viewpoint. It has also urged that the states should be allowed to give their views before the committee as electricity is a concurrent subject.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, federation chairman Shailendra Dubey alleged that the changes in the draft Bill have been proposed to pave the way for privatisation of the power sector, wherein supply licensees will be mostly from the private sector who will get assured profit by way of guaranteed return on capital employed and by stipulating that they will get their expenses covered without revenue gap. “The changes in tariff have been proposed to encourage privatisation and ensure guaranteed profits to private parties,” he added.
He said that when most of the state distribution companies (discoms) in the country are in financial distress, this is not the time to introduce changes by way of separating supply and distribution functions. It will make the crisis even worse, he said.
The Bill provides for “Smart Grid” which is an electricity network that uses information and communication technology to gather information and act in an automated manner to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics and sustainability of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.
The Bill makes for a case of 24x7 power supplies and provides for strict penalties for non-compliance, theft and other offences. In some cases, the penalty has been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore. It also provides for renewable purchase obligation under which the “polluter pays” principle applies. A five-time Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) MP from Hoshangabad, 78-year-old Sartaj Singh, who is considered as an honest lawmaker, is going to contest on a Congress ticket in the upcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. His name has appeared in the Congress’ candidate list released this week. Singh, who had won the 2013 polls from SeoniMalwa Assembly segment of Hoshangabad parliamentary constituency on a BJP ticket, was denied a ticket this time ostensibly because of his old age. He has served as the Health Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet at the Centre. In June 2016 when Singh was Public Works Minister, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan dropped him from the ministry for “non- performance”. However, sources claim that he was removed as he took on the powerful road construction mafia which has close ties with the top-most bureaucrats of the state. Soon after taking charge of the portfolio in 2013, Singh, in perhaps the first such initiative ever taken by a minister, had established a laboratory at his residence to test the quality of construction material that was being used by private contractors to construct roads in the state.
Singh undertook the ex- ercise to ensure that the engineers of his department did not collude with private contractors and use inferior quality material in construction of roads in the state. The laboratory was established in the garage of his residence and members of his personal staff were trained by two PWD engineers to check the quality of materials used in road construction.
Singh decided to establish the laboratory after he received several complaints that the engineers, who were deputed to check the quality of roads, were colluding with the private contractors and giving them certificates of good work despite the quality of the material being of poor quality.
In furtherance of this exercise, Singh would often collect samples from the roads constructed in different parts of the state during his official tours, so that the quality of the roads even in remote areas of the state could be tested at his laboratory. As a result, the PWD engineers, who earlier used to approve bad quality roads in connivance with the officials working in government-approved quality-checking laboratories, started venturing out in the field to ensure that the private contractors adhered to the prescribed quality while constructing roads.
Singh had in March this year alleged that the state government staff had demanded bribe from him for reimbursing his hospital bills. Earlier this week, after being told that he won’t be given a BJP ticket this time, Singh broke down in front of everyone. After this, state Congress president Kamal Nath and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh contacted him and offered him a ticket.