The Hindu Business Line : New company to handle KSEB trading activities

A MEETING of top officials convened by the Electricity Minister, Mr Aryadan Mohammed, has drawn up the broad outline for restructuring the power sector in Kerala as required by the Electricity Act 2003.

The proposal, which will be put up for Cabinet approval, envisages converting the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) into a company and entrusting all power trading activities with a new entity. The purpose of the meeting, held here on Tuesday, was to find ways to retain undisturbed the overall organisational structure of KSEB even while fulfilling the mandates of the 2003 Act.

The proposed company will be handling all the activities of the board in the areas of generation, transmission and distribution. The 2003 Act states that a utility handling transmission functions cannot indulge in trading activities. This has necessitated the formation of a new set-up to exclusively deal with the power trading functions of KSEB, according to top officials of the board.

The trading entity, for instance, will purchase energy from non-KSEB sources and sell it to the company that is envisaged to come up in place of the board. And, this will not require any big establishment.

The proposal also features designating special officers to investigate offences such as power theft. The 2003 Act mandates that there should be special courts to hear such cases. Instead of setting up special courts, the meeting proposed that the Government, with the permission of the High Court, could designate courts at district level for the purpose.

The meeting felt that the objectives of the Act, such as improving the availability, affordability and quality of power supply, could be achieved within the existing organisational structure of KSEB.

Over the last three years, the board had done well on the financial side despite the setback in hydel generation on account of poor monsoon in 2002-03 and 2003-04. Besides, the transmission and distribution losses came down to less than 26 per cent from over 32 per cent.

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