Rewiring the National Electricity Policy

Half-hearted reforms and half-baked responses don’t work, and who would know that better than Power Minister RK Singh, who has made ambitious attempts to overhaul the sector. But for any reforms in the power sector to work, it is important to ensure that States are on board.

Empowered with the existing Electricity Act 2003 that enables the Centre to review and revise the National Electricity Policy, Singh and his team have been working on the National Electricity Policy 2021.

The objectives of the Policy are clear — to promote clean and sustainable generation of electricity, development of adequate and efficient transmission system, revitalisation of distribution companies (Discoms), development of efficient electricity markets, supply of reliable and quality power of specified standards efficiently, move towards light touch regulation and promote local manufacturing in the generation, transmission and distribution segments of the power sector.

What is new here? Many of these objectives have been addressed or at least attempts have been made to address them over the years.