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Centre to let consumers choose electricity suppliers?

Peeved at your power distribution company's high tariffs or poor quality of service? A change may be on hand with the Centre planning to provide choice to consumers to choose electricity suppliers. The Union power ministry has introduced amendments to the Electricity Act in Parliament.

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Peeved at your power distribution company's high tariffs or poor quality of service? A change may be on hand with the Centre planning to provide choice to consumers to choose electricity suppliers. The Union power ministry has introduced amendments to the Electricity Act in Parliament.

These amendments will destroy such monopolies in the power sector and give end-users the ability to make a choice in terms of the distribution company on lines of the choice given to them to choose mobile phone operators and shift to another telecom company in case they are unhappy. The proposed change in the law will also ensure competition and make available affordable power and better services to customers. "We have introduced these amendments in the winter session of the Parliament and they have been referred to the standing committee on power," said Piyush Goyal, union minister of state (independent charge) for power, coal and new and renewable energy, adding that its report was expected to be submitted to the speaker by March- April. "We hope to pass this in the second half of the budget session," said Goyal.

They were also trying to break the monopolies of all discoms and give freedom to people to choose their power suppliers based on factors like rates and quality of service. "This will ensure portability on lines of mobiles... if the service is not good, (consumers) can migrate to other suppliers," explained Goyal.

He said that 1 crore bulbs and 5 lakh street lights in Delhi will be replaced with low energy consuming LEDs in one year and similar replacement programs will initiated in Mumbai and other cities to save around 10,000 MW in peak hours and over Rs 10,000 crore eventually. The bulbs will be installed in the country in three years as part of this LED lighting project. "We hope that by Dusshera, all street lights in Mujmbai will be converted to LEDs," said Goyal, adding that it could save about 60 to 65% power.

He said a meeting about the fate of the beleaguered 1,940 MW RGPPL project would be held with the Maharashtra government and stakeholders and added they were "open to ideas" including its privatisation. "The previous government left behind a large liability of Rs 2,000 crore," said Goyal, adding that the project's lenders had been under stress.

The RGPPL project, which was originally rated at a 2,150 MW installed capacity, was revived in 2005 to take over the assets of the erstwhile Dabhol Power Company (DPC) promoted by the controversial Enron Corporation with stakeholders like the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), GAIL, Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) and financial lenders.The Centre also has an action plan to double public sector coal behemoth Coal India Limited's (CIL) production to 100 crore in five years and add 1 lakh MW capacity in solar power and 60,000 MW wind energy capacity installation by 2022. The Narendra Modi led government plans to pump in around 250 billion dollars or Rs 15 lakh crore in the power generation, transmission, distribution, renewable energy and coal sectors.

Goyal also dismissed allegations by AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal against BJP Delhi chief Satish Upadhyay as "baseless" and charged that these were "frivolous cases." Kejriwal had alleged that Upadhyay was involved in a nexus with power distribution utilities and owns companies which install and replace electricity meters in Delhi.

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