Govt, Reliance close to solution

CII evaluating possibility of Govt takeover of transmission network with help of industry

Published on:

23 Jan 2024, 4:39 am

Ajit John

ajit@herald-goa.com

PANJIM: The former corporate consumers of electricity provided by Reliance Power in Goa are being serviced through the existing transmission network that is being used by the Dept of Electricity, Govt of Goa and this arrangement will continue till alternate arrangements can be made.

The company have stopped generating power but have technically not pulled out since their PPA with the Govt of Goa expired on August 13, 2014 and they had agreed to share their existing transmission network.

This was confirmed by Kirit Maganlal, chairman, CII Goa Council. Explaining the power distribution model, he said “As of August 14, 2014, the Electricity Department, GoG took over the supply of power to the earlier Reliance consumers treating them as ‘Declared connected Consumers’ in order to protect the interests of these industrial consumers. Despite the fact that the State was facing an acute power shortage, the Chief Minister empathised with these industries and directed the Govt to prevent any form of interruption of power to the industry.”

The GoG, he said began negotiations with Reliance Infra and directed them to allow the consumers to use the existing transmission grid till alternative arrangements could be out which they had gracefully acceded.

With regards to the cost of the power and its distribution, Mr Maganlal said the last Invoice received by the consumers for July 2014 was provisional and was at a unit rate of approximately Rs 17.65 which he felt was exorbitantly high for the industry to consume. Reliance based this on the logic that the GoG power to them was coming in at Rs 12.95 per unit.

CII, he said helped bring the Industry, the GoG and Reliance together on a table and sort out the issue in the best interests of all. The negotiations were assisted to a very large extent by the outgoing Power Secretary, Keshav Chandra and followed up by the CII Manufacturing Panel headed by Martin Ghosh.

Asked if the unit cost would be approximately Rs 5.68 or 6, Mr Maganlal said “Reliance is still awaiting the formal letter from the GoG as regards the billing rate for power supply to Reliance from the day Reliance stopped generating. This rate would be in the range of Rs 3.78 to 3.90 Reliance would then modify their provisional bills and raise further Invoices for the period of August 1 to 13 viz the last date of the PPA with the GoG.” This letter, he said would be issued as soon as the Chief Minister is available to sign the same. Subsequent to that, CII had impressed upon Reliance to bill the consumers only at Rs 2 per unit for transmission charges.

Asked about the role played by the CII, the President said that CII facilitated the meetings with the Government and Reliance after it was convinced that the industry had no other alternative left. He said “I am happy to state that it was the consistent and dedicated drive by the CII Manufacturing Panel in coordination with Keshav Chandra and the Dept of Electricity and the Govt of Goa that has brought an immediate respite to the consumers. We have still not reached to the end of the problem. But we are close.”

With regards to a big consumer of electricity in the state, MPT, he said that they were on board like several other major consumers. Everyone, he said understood this issue was too large to be handled independently, even for regional organizations.

The CII’s takeaway from this exercise was that all those who never sat across the table before were now under a benign umbrella to reach an acceptable solution.

With regards to the possibility of making the government buying the distribution network, Mr Maganlal said the next task before CII was to evaluate the possibility of taking over the existing transmission network. They were exploring the possibility of talking to Reliance to evaluate the cost of such a takeover. Since it existed anything else would be a duplication of efforts. However he said the industry was open to investing in a separate modern network of transmission lines, once the GoG issued them formal load sanctions. He revealed that some major companies had already begun investments in such an exercise. The CII Panel was currently evaluating options and making feasibility studies in either case scenario.