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Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh

Power in the future

The Chief Minister urged MSEDCL to find a solution to the power crisis in our city. Citizens, MSEDCL officials and businesspersons were among those who helped draft a memorandum to the MSEDCL

Bhanu Kumar

A meeting chaired by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on April 13, organised by Member of Parliament Gurudas Kamat was deemed quite a success as several important decisions were taken regarding the load shedding in our suburbs.

Municipal Commissioner Johnny Joseph, Dr Ajay Bhushan Pande, MD Maha Vitaran and the Chairman of MSEB were present as were officials from the MSEB, BMC, and Hillside Residents Welfare Association (HIRWA) led by Prakash Padikkal. Even corporators, People’s Power of the Nation represented by Anmol Bhushan, representatives from small scale industries, entrepreneurs and residents offered their suggestions.

The problems faced by residents and businesspersons were highlighted and it was pointed out that wherever there are mixed feeders for residential and industrial users, it is the industries that suffer from load shedding.

After all the parties were heard, a consensus was reached regarding long and short term measures to counter and tide over the power crisis. It was decided that if the MSEDCL cannot provide service to the consumers, then a second distribution licensee should be allowed in these areas. The new distributor must have existing capacities or should be capable of procuring power.

Those who attended the meeting, acknowledged that Mulund, Bhandup and Vashi had negligible transmission and distribution losses and therefore load shedding in these areas should be lesser than that in areas with greater transmission and distribution losses.

Industries and malls should be mandated to have their own generators. More importantly, the MSEDCL should not give new power connections for one year.

In the long term, it was felt that Maharashtra could tide over the crisis if it began to emulate Pune’s success with captive power generation.

Alternative energy sources like wind, solar energy and generation of power from biomass waste should be encouraged with incentives and subsidies. The BMC should implement and enforce segregation of waste to aid generation of biomass energy.

It was also emphasised that when the MSEDCL is not able to cater to its customers, it should not permit other service providers to draw power from its grid. It was recommended that the MERC (Standard of Performance of Distribution Licensees Regulations, 2005, regulation be amended so that, MSEDCL is restrained from giving any new connections. It was recommended that MERC should take the lead in ensuring that generating companies update technology and machinery and power generation is optimised.

However, Padikkal pointed out, “Malls and commercial centres conduct business uninterrupted due to Express Feeders provided to industries that were originally located on these lands. MSEDCL explains this by saying that malls were paying a premium price. Can MSEDCL contend that if a person can afford the steep bill they are free to waste power?” The memorandum states that malls and commercial centres should be directed to observe a Code of Conduct formulated by MERC.

“The chief minister asked MSEDCL to consider halting load shedding in our suburbs and the MSEDCL said they would present the people’s views to MERC,” concludes Padikkal.

“All we ask is that the MSEDCL augments the shortfall, allows one window clearance for all power projects, creates a supervisory body comprising representatives from government, NGOs and experts,” sums up Padikkal.
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