Partner states set to challenge step
Move to bring BBMB under CERC
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Panipat, October 2
The partner states, which own the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB), are all set to challenge the recent move of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to bring the board under its jurisdiction.

According to experts in the power sector, the move was likely to jack up generation costs at the hydro station, which will result in a hike in the power tariff in the partner states, including Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

The CERC, in a recent order, had directed the BBMB to make appropriate applications for approval of tariff for its generating stations and transmission system by the commission. The commission in a suo- motu petition had decided that the BBMB was a generating company, owned and controlled by the Central Government, and it was also involved in inter-state transmission of electricity. Accordingly, regulation and determination of tariff for generation and inter-state transmission of electricity by the BBMB was the prerogative of the central commission.

The BBMB has an installed capacity of 2,804.73 MW from the Bhakra-Nangal and Beas Project and has a transmission network of 3,735 km of 400 kV, 220 kV, 132 kV and 66 kV transmission lines for supply of power to Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

At present, partner states get their tariff approvals from the state electricity regulatory commissions. Their share of power from the BBMB power houses and payments made to the board towards its expenditures are duly shown in their annual revenue requirements before the regulatory commission.

These states get power from the BBMB’s power houses at about 30 paise per unit. A senior power engineer said that in case the tariff for generating units and transmission lines was going to be decided by the CERC, it was likely to result in an increase in the cost of power in the region.

A senior official connected with the power sector said the interpretation of the CERC that the BBMB was a Central Government project like Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) was not based on facts. The generating stations and the allied transmission lines were owned jointly by the partner states and the BBMB was only managing the states’ assets on their behalf. The Central Government provided no fund for the BBMB as it did for the DVC, he said.

Another senior official of the power sector confided with The Tribune that the matter had been taken up with the partner states and they would be challenging the decision within the mandatory 60 days. He said the CERC, in one of its own orders dated September 11, 2006, (order no. 116/2005), had clearly stated that the generation stations under the BBMB were intrastate power houses and the latest move was in contradiction of these observations.