Incidentally or accidentally Congress’ Manifesto implementation in Karnataka is going to hit the private players edge to enter the electricity sector in the state. With 200 units free package to the common household as many as 1 Crore people will benefit. However, this is very minute portion of the overall electricity consumption including domestic and commercial. Moreover, private players mean business, and hence they look for ROI as per the business plan. Now it looks like private players may not be interested to enter the market immediately. This is probably one of the biggest checkmates from Congress ruled state Government to the BJP led Central Ministry who are willing to allow private players to the electricity sector across the country.
Adani, and Reliance are two major private players in this segment and now may face the shock by this guarantee scheme of the state. On the other hand, the state Discoms have started load shedding that was never heard of during BJP regime in the state. If this continues, it will hit the production industries, and thus directly hit the state GDP. It has been seen that BJP/NDA ruled states are major contributors to GDP, and hassle-free electricity supply is one of the major factors for such growth.
Now, how Congress-led state will demand and get same supply from the national grid? Wait and watch, there will be some purely corporate politics above caste and regional cards in the pipeline.
Solar subsidy of 50 paise per unit or maximum of 50 rupees per month were supportive package towards renewable energy which are now taken back by the Government to manage 200 unit subsidy to the eligible households and base price has been increased to 200 from 125 for 2KW domestic supply, per unit price has been increased by 70 paise, and thus altogether the State Ministry itself is acting as a private player to manage the promised freebies which definitely will impact large subscribers of the state and sad part is that they don’t have any alternative to Discoms.
And probably private players may see this as a business opportunity by providing 24X7 hassle-free supply, in a cheaper rate than the Discoms, easy and quick connections and 24X7 service support. That’s what a domestic or commercial users look for like in the telephone or internet sector.
Now, who is going to benefit out of this cold war, no doubt, 100% it will be businessmen. Common people look for either freebies or economical model, and thus industrial sector may use whatever the best they get and transfer that burden on the consumers.
Power game is on, and at the end it’s the responsibility of the Government to safeguard people’s aspirations and livelihood, probably the state may do it at least till General elections.
At last, I regret for the delay in publishing the weekly editorial. it’s definitely not load shedding by electricity board, but due to workload by the editorial board!