Former Haryana finance minister Sampat Singh on Friday criticised the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC), accusing it of acting as a rubber stamp for private interests.
Condemning HERC’s “systemic abdication of its statutory powers” in appointing a “hand-picked” three-member expert committee to process the parallel distribution licence application of a private player, Eleven Power Private Limited, Sampat Singh said the entire exercise was an institutional farce engineered to serve corporate cronies at the cost of the public exchequer and rural consumers.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader, in a statement, questioned the need to appoint an expert committee to examine Eleven Power’s licence bid, stating that under Section 84 of the Electricity Act, 2003, the commission possesses complete in-house statutory expertise in engineering, law, finance and administration.
“When a fully empowered statutory regulator hides behind an ad hoc, outsourced panel for routine adjudicatory matters, it is not a question of expertise; it is a deliberate failure of intent and accountability,” the former minister said.
He said the panel had now backed Eleven Power’s bid, rubber-stamping a business plan designed to “cherry-pick” high-density 220 kV/66 kV commercial and industrial hubs in Gurugram and Nuh. The private firm assumes capturing only 2.5% to 15% of sales share, effectively dodging the statutory Universal Supply Obligation under Section 43 of the Act, he mentioned. This would leave the state-owned DHBVN, which derives 40% of its revenue from Gurugram, saddled exclusively with non-profitable agricultural and rural sectors, threatening the financial collapse for public utilities, he said.
Singh also condemned the regulator’s action of inviting only DHBVN for a hearing in response to the panel’s submitted report.
{{/usCountry}}Singh also condemned the regulator’s action of inviting only DHBVN for a hearing in response to the panel’s submitted report.
{{/usCountry}}