TN keen on continuing free power schemes, asks Centre to keep free power for farmers out of DBT scope

The Centre has approved the draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020, and plans to extend DBT to the power sector so as to make subsidy benefits more targeted towards the poorer sections of society

Chennai: Expressing his resoluteness on continuing the free power schemes for farmers and 100 units free for all domestic consumers in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Wednesday urged the Centre to keep these outside the scope of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system. He conveyed this to Union Minister of State for Power, R K Singh during a meeting with him at the Secretariat here.

The Chief Minister said the state government’s consistent policy has been that farmers should receive free power and it needs to be continued.

“Therefore, the DBT principle should not be applied for the agricultural sector. Further, the Tamil Nadu government has been providing 100 units free for all domestic consumers, for which we provide subsidy to TANGEDCO. This scheme may also be kept outside the scope of the DBT system,” he said.

The Centre has approved the draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020, and plans to extend DBT to the power sector so as to make subsidy benefits more targeted towards the poorer sections of society.

The Power Ministry proposed introduction of DBT in the sector, wherein the electricity tariffs will be determined by commissions without taking subsidy into account, which will be directly given by the government to the intended consumers.

In a letter submitted to Singh, the Chief Minister said the subsidy given by the state government to the agricultural sector and domestic consumers is released to state-run TANGEDCO directly and that given to Distribution Licencees are properly assessed with the approval of the State Commission.

Also, subsidy is being provided to the utility in advance in Tamil Nadu.

“Hence the mode of payment of subsidy may be left to the consideration of the state government,” he said in the letter, a copy of which was made available to the media.

He argued that the provisions in the draft Amendment Bill, 2020, allowing private franchisee/sub-licencee,would only lead to cherry picking of remunerative areas by the franchisee/sub-distribution licencee affecting the DISCOMs directly, thereby the public interest.

The State discoms will be left with serving the social sector obligations and rural areas, which will result in massive losses to the discoms, Palaniswami said.

Tamil Nadu has already conveyed its comments on the draft Bill, 2020, raising a few matters of utmost concern that are detrimental to the state and its utilities, he said.

Tamil Nadu has the most diversified electricity generation portfolio in India with renewables alone constituting 49.47 per cent of the installed capacity.

“I would like to recall the untiring efforts of our late Chief Minister Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (J Jayalalithaa), due to which Tamil Nadu transformed itself into a power surplus State,” he said.

Tamil Nadu has added a massive capacity of 15,410 MW since 2011 by commissioning new power stations, entering into medium and long-term power purchase agreements and by addition of renewable energy sources.

Due to tremendous efforts in ensuring reliable and affordable availability of energy for all-round development, Tamil Nadu today is a power surplus state, Palaniswami said.

He suggested fixing Renewable Purchase Obligation for total renewable energy rather than independently fixing for solar, non-solar, hydro, and solarising individual grid connected pump sets, with 100 per cent grant from the ministry under the PM-KUSUM scheme instead of separating agricultural feeders and solarising them.

Separation of agricultural feeder would be a costly proposal and will also cause unrest among farmers, he said.

Hailing the Centre’s Rs 90,000 crore liquidity infusion package to DISCOMs to clear the dues of generators and transmission companies, he urged the union government to relax norms for working capital under UDAY, since there is no headroom available for TANGEDCO.

He sought early disbursement of the Rs 20,622 crore financial aid requested by TANGEDCO.

Apart from restoring the existing linkage quantity of 20.445 Million Tonnes Per Annum coal, which Coal India Limited had curtailed to 18.791 MTPA, Palaniswami requested the union minister to consider enhancing the linkages allotted to North Chennai TPS II (2X600MW) and Mettur TPS II (1X600MW) to 6.62 MTPA and 3.31 MTPA respectively.

Coal India may be directed to supply coal at the consumption point of thermal plants for the benefit of consumers by reducing cost of power, he said.

Environmental clearance should be accorded to TANGEDCO to explore the Chandrabila coal block allotted to it, long-term coal linkage for the upcoming North Chennai Stage-III STPP (1 x 800 MW) and Uppur STPP (2 x 800 MW) to an extent of 5.913 MTPA, for TANGEDCO to take coal from Talcher region.

Declaration of RaigarhPugalur-Trissur HVDC transmission corridor as strategic and national importance similar to Biswanath /Chariali (North Eastern Region) Agra (Northern region) HVDC transmission system were his other demands.

Source: PTI