BHUBANESWAR: Within weeks of taking over the management of Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU), Tata Power has asked for a review of the vesting order issued by the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC). Filing a review petition before OERC, the Tata Group subsidiary has raised objections to almost all the points it had agreed upon for takeover of the utility that has now been renamed as Tata Power Central Odisha Distribution Limited (TPCODL) .
Terming the May 26, 2020, order as contrary to the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003 and terms laid down in the Request For Proposal (RPF) for bidding, Tata Power has said it never envisaged that it will be required to provide any kind of security in the form of corporate guarantee to secure the bulk supply price (BSP) bill of State-owned Gridco and transmission charges of OPTCL. “In order to ensure security to Gridco for payment of its BSP bills in full, TPCODL would need to provide Gridco with revolving letter of credit facility equivalent to two months of the average BSP bill as a primary payment security mechanism,” the OERC order had stipulated.
This is part of the bulk supply agreement between Gridco and Tata Power, which the latter has now contested on ground that it was not in the bid document. The Commission while vesting the CESU employees with TPCODL has given full protection to their services so that they will in no way way be inferior to the existing service conditions. Demanding more operational flexibility to ensure efficiency in operation and staff deployment, TPCODL alleged, “Such conditions in the vesting order is not just arbitrary and unfair but is also likely to expose the petitioner to expensive and unnecessary litigation because of the vague and subjective nature of such direction.”
The Commission had also defined an aggregated technical and commercial loss trajectory from the current year for the next five years for tariff determination and linked the same to the performance of the company. In case of failure to meet the loss reduction target, the company will have to pay a penalty of `50 crore for every one percent shortfall, the order stated. Tata Power has asked for upward revision of the trajectory under force majeure clause because of the prevailing Covid- 19 pandemic situation.
Ironically, the pandemic had started three months prior to the issue of vesting order and Tata Power was well aware of the situation. “Tata Power could have raised these points before accepting the vesting order,” said a senior officer of erstwhile CESU. While Tata Power is not willing to take over any past liabilities, it wants commissions and incentives from the arrears collected during March to May, for which the CESU staff had toiled hard, he added. Meanwhile, a joint forum of electrical employees under the banner of Odisha Rajya Biudyut Shramika Karmachari Engineers Ekta Manch has petitioned Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik demanding immediate cancellation of the vesting order and bringing the company back into Government fold.