Power Ministry Issues New Draft Electricity (Amendment) Rules 2023, Seeks Comments From Stakeholders

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The Ministry of Power on Friday released its latest Draft Electricity (Amendment) Rules 2023 and sought comments from stakeholders by the end of May 11, 2023. The new draft rules have proposed changes in Section 15 and Section 19 of the Electricity Rules 2005. 

The Power Ministry Proposes New Changes In he Draft Electricity (Amendment) Rules 2023

The new rules have been named ‘Electricity (Amendment) Rules 2023’. The notification makes the first proposal of amending Section 15 of the 2005 rules, which discusses subsidy accounting and payment for discoms and power consumers. 

The new proposed rules claimed that State Commissions would release quarterly reports for each discom in their jurisdiction. Under this, they have to submit their findings on the demands for subsidies raised by the discom in the quarter. Moreover, the report has to be based on accurate accounts of the energy consumed by the subsidized category and consumer-wise category-wise per unit subsidy declared by the states. 

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The new rules claimed that these quarterly report of the commission has to be prepared within 45 days from the end date of the respective quarter. The new rules also empower the State Commissions to take action against erring officials for non-compliance with the norms. 

The new draft rules of the ministry also proposed the addition of another section after Section 19 of the 2005 rules. The proposed ‘Section 20’ talks about the framework for financial sustainability. The new draft rules under the proposed Section 20 proposed seven-fold norms on the issue. 

The section proposed that the loss reduction trajectory to be adopted by the states for tariff determination should be per the trajectory agreed by the respective states approved by the Central government under any national scheme or programme. It also said that the trajectory for both collection and billing efficiency for the discoms should be determined by the state commissions. 

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The new framework for financial sustainability under the draft rules said that all the prudent costs of power procurement incurred by the discoms for 24×7 power supply and for meeting requirements as per the resource adequacy plan should be taken into account by the state commissions. 

The proposed norms also said that the gains and losses accrued to the discoms due to deviation from the approved aggregate transmission losses reduction trajectory should be quantified on the basis of the average power purchase cost and shared between the discoms and the consumers.