13 May, 2015 C. No. 20/Resume No. 7/2015-16 To : Members of the Committee All Members Re : Proceedings of the Meeting Dear Sir, The Chamber organised a Seminar on ‘Vision for an Efficient Power Sector’ on 08 May 2015 at The Park, Kolkata. Shri Manish Gupta, Hon’ble Minister for Power and Non-Conventional Energy Sources, GoWB, Shri Gireesh B. Pradhan, Chairperson, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, and Dr. S.K. Chatterjee, Joint Chief (Regulatory Affairs), CERC addressed the Seminar. Brief proceedings of the Seminar is enclosed for your kind perusal. Thanking you, Encl: Attached below Yours sincerely, Sukanya Basu Assistant Secretary Brief Proceedings of the Seminar on “Vision for an Efficient Power Sector” on 08 May 2015 The Chamber organised a Seminar on ‘Vision for an Efficient Power Sector’ on 08 May 2015 at The Park, Kolkata. Shri Manish Gupta, Hon’ble Minister for Power and NonConventional Energy Sources, GoWB, Shri Gireesh B. Pradhan, Chairperson, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, and Dr.S.K. Chatterjee, Joint Chief (Regulatory Affairs), CERC addressed the Seminar. • Shri Arun Kumar Saraf, President, MCCI expressed his concern over the issues related to ‘Financial losses of Power Discoms’; ‘Overdrawing of power by the discoms’; ‘Pending Cases with CERC which are beyond the stipulated time’ and ‘inadequacy of manpower of CERC’ etc. He viewed that eletricity distribution to the end consumers in India needed reforms in order to achieve the target of reaching electricity to all by 2019. He expressed concern as presently, power generation capacity of 136 GW is stalled in the country. • While speaking on the power situation in the State, Shri Manish Gupta stated that West Bengal is a power surplus State with a 18% registered growth in power generation from 17.15 Million Units in 2011 to close to 21 Million Units at present and the State exports Power to Bangladesh earning Rs 800 Crores per year and also to other States. • He said that the country is presently short on coal and it is a big issue as 200 million ton of coal is imported every year. As our coal reserve is limited we have to look for other options like non-conventional energy sources. He added that his government has published a policy on renewable energy already. He mentioned few initiatives taken by the government in this context :  The State has undertaken generation of Solar backed up Hydro Power plant including existing 900 MW Pump Storage Plant in Baghmundi.  Two hydro power generation plants of 1,000 MW and 900 MW each similar to the Purulia Pump Storage Project (PPSP) will come up at Turga and Bandakhola in Purulia.  State is doing powerbanking whereby Inter-State transaction is performed.  Government is going to set up 500 MW Solar Park at Dadan in Midnapur and 200 MW Roof-Top Solar Power Project in Rajarhat. 1 • Shri Gupta also mentioned that the government is seeking Rs 40,000 Crore Green Energy Fund from Union Government to build more pump storage hydel plants in the State. • He announced that in the next 2-3 years, the power tariff is expected to be reduced following a favourable coal block allocation and auction result in West Bengal. He explained that previously it was an unhappy situation of buying coal from Coal India and now it will be WBPDCL’s own Coal and WBPDCL will simply incur the raising costs and thus the tariff might be reduced. • He expected that by June 2016, all villages would be electrified from the present 8586% coverage. • Dr. Chatterjee pointed to the issue of the Separation of Tariff Content and Distribution; Real Time Balancing by Designing a Proper Power Market as Trading or Exchanging platform; and explained the initiatives taken by CERC like introduction of an Ancillory Services in terms of 24X7 power market which would fit into low budget and is at a draft stage at National Level. For Grid Integration of Renewable energy framework, CERC has come up with a scheduling policy. • Shri Gireesh B. Pradhan, while addressing the session mentioned that the country requires Rs 13-14 Lac Crore investment to ensure 24X7 power for all by 2019-20 with the current installed capacity of 270,000 MW and plan to add 88,000 MW during the 12th Five Year Plan Period. • He pointed out that in the distribution sector, investment is required in three important segments, like electrification of un-electrified households, segregation of agriculture feeders, system improvement for loss reduction, meter data management and IT enabled services and all these will require total Rs.5,27,000 crore investment in the next 5 years. • He also confessed that the bedrock of Inter-State Cross-Subsidy has shattered the Open Access mechanism as promulgated by National Electricity Act 2003. He opined that in order to assess the true impact of cross-subsidy erosion, the first step toward cross subsidy issue would be to determine voltage wise and or category wise cost of supply for all states. • Shri Pradhan alarmed the members of the root causes of irritation faced by the Power Buyers by saying ‘Financial Health of Distribution Utility is at worrysome state and he demanded immediate attention to it. 2 • Replying to the issue of disposal of petitions, Shri Pradhan informed that during 20042009, 400 petitions were filed which raised by four fold to 1020 petitions during 20092014 with 36% from private sector but the human resource strength, which is the backbone for effective functioning of the Commission has remained stagnant since 2000. In spite of this constraint, in order to expedite disposal, the CERC took a pro-active measure to hear the cases during the first half of 2014-15 and issue suitable order. • On the issue of Transmission and Distribution Losses he said that aggregate technical and commercial losses are 22-27% on average in India against 6-7% at International Level. Punjab, Delhi, Maharashtra have taken some measures to decrease these losses. • He urged MCCI to carry out a detailed road map/plan and assist the State Government in assessment of actual demand and losses and the desired quantum of power procurement. This will help the State Government to make West Bengal state specific recommendations for considertaion of the Union Government. • The Meeting ended with a ‘Vote of Thanks’ proposed by Shri Deepak Kumar Agarwal, Chairman, Standing Committee on Steel, MCCI. Sukanya Basu (Assistant Secretary) 3