oppn parties Making Discoms Accountable: Competition, Not Rules Will Do The Trick

News Snippets

  • EC slams Congress for raising doubts about Haryana results
  • Omar Abdullah says he hopes the Centre will keep its promise of restoring statehood for J&K
  • BJP gets a historic third term in Haryana by bagging 48 seats, a majority on its own, while Congress gets 37
  • National Conference-Congress alliance sweeps the polls in J&K, winning 49 out of 90 seats while the BJP bags 29
  • More than 50 senior R G Kar doctors send in 'mass resignation', Bengal government officials say it has no legal validity
  • Additional districts judge Anirban Das will hear the R G Kar rape-murder case in camera four days a week from November 4
  • Stocks break 6-day losing streak as Haryana poll results buoy the markets -Sensex gains 585 points to 81635 and Nifty 217 points to 25013
  • IOC president P T Usha denies allegations in CAG report that extension of Reliance contract had resulted in a loss of Rs 24cr to the sports body
  • 2nd T20 versus Bangladesh: India look to seal series with another commanding win today at New Delhi
  • Women's T20 World Cup: India take on Sri Lanka today in a bid to win and shore up their net run rate to keep afloat in the tournament
  • Asian TT: Ayhika Mukherjee beats two players ranked much higher than her as India beat South Korea 3-2 to move to the semis and assure a medal
  • 2nd U-19 Test: India scores 492 as Harvansh Pangalia hits a ton, Australia were 142 for three in reply
  • Opposition alleges that the BJP is including the 5 nominated MLAs in its scheme of froming the government in the state
  • Calcutta HC has ruled that courts cannot cancel bail without hearing the accused
  • Lalu Prasad and his sons Tejaswi and Tej Pratap secure bail in the cash-for-jobs scam
BJP defies odds and exit polls to win a third consecutive term in Haryana while NC-Congress sweep J&K
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Making Discoms Accountable: Competition, Not Rules Will Do The Trick

By Ashwini Agarwal
First publised on 2020-12-23 09:52:25

Apart from a few regions such as Mumbai and New Delhi, power distribution companies are geographical monopolies in most regions in India. This is a result of no reform in the power distribution sector (despite big talks about introducing the model of separation of carriage and content) which has left the consumer at the mercy of state-owned or private discoms. These near monopolies have a record of providing shoddy service and being unreceptive to consumer grievances. The consumer has no choice as there is usually no other service provider in the region.

To address these issues, the government has come out with The Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020 that seek to make power distribution companies more accountable to the consumer. From compensating consumers for long power cuts to providing a timeline for new connections, the rules try to provide the consumer with some muscle when facing these monopolies. But many similar rules have already been put in place by state electricity regulatory commissions, without any perceptible change in the working of the discoms. Hence, as long as the will to implement the rules in not there, they remain on paper.

The best way to make discoms accountable is to introduce competition. If the option to change the service provider exists, the consumer knows he or she has an option and the discom knows that providing shoddy service will not do. This has happened in the telecom sector and it keeps all players on their toes. But in the power sector, since there is no option, discoms very much do as it pleases them. These rules are also not going to change much. The best way is to allow multiple power distribution companies in each region. The government must seriously implement separation of carriage and content or think of other models to boost efficiency.