Tamil Nadu chief minister asks Centre not to privatise power distribution

CHENNAI: Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday urged the Centre not to privatise power distribution.
"Allowing private franchisee/sub-licencee would only lead to cherry-picking of remunerative areas by the franchisee/sub-distribution licencee affecting discoms directly, thereby public interest. The state discoms will be left with serving social sector obligations and rural areas which will result in massive losses," the CM told Union power minister R K Singh during a meeting at the secretariat.
Palaniswami expressed his opposition to the direct benefit transfer of subsidy to farmers and wanted the Centre to release 20,000 crore sought by Tangedco under the PM-Kusum scheme. "The DBT principle should not be applied to the agricultural sector. Further, the government of Tamil Nadu has been providing 100 units free for all domestic consumers for which government provides a subsidy to Tangedco. This scheme may also be kept outside the scope of the DBT system," he said.
Fixing of hydropower purchase obligation separately to TN cannot be accepted as hydro generation is seasonal and monsoon dependent and not in the control of discoms, the CM said.
Palaniswami said it would be very costly to have a separate feeder for agriculture and instead suggested solarising individual grid-connected pump sets.