Telangana: Open access soon to power homes

Hyderabad: After commercial and industrial consumers, household consumers will also have the freedom to choose their power service provider for their home requirements. According to sources in the Energy Department, the Central Government is proposing the open access system to household consumers as well in its proposed new electricity bill to be presented in the Parliament soon.

Official sources said that the Centre is proposing this system in a bid to reduce the electricity bill of the household consumer. The present Electricity Act provides open access system to major consumers who consume up to 1 MW. The Electricity Act framed in 2003 had envisaged a situation of open access system which essentially meant that the users would be free to choose the provider who supplies power at a cheaper tariff.

The energy officials said with the introduction of open access system to commercial and industrial users the sales of Discoms, the power company, has dropped. In Telangana State itself, the power sales by Discoms has reduced by 1,000 MW per year. As such, the company is already facing financial problems and if the Centre extends the open access system to households as well, the sales will drop further. 

According to All India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPEF), the Electricity Act 2003 was enacted for restoring the financial health of the power sector but this Act failed to achieve its objectives and has resulted in more than '9 lakh crore losses and piling of debt on Discoms across the country.  

The Central government had introduced the UDAY scheme in which the state governments are responsible for improving the financial condition of the Discoms in their state. To start with, the state governments had to take over the outstanding debts of the Discoms in a phased and time—bound manner. But the UDAY scheme has not yielded the desired results, according to the AIPEF.