Mamata writes to PM to oppose Centre's move to place 'anti-people' Electricity Bill in Parl
Kolkata: Reiterating her protest against the Centre's fresh move to place the "anti-people" Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020 in Parliament, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting to refrain from initiation of the legislation as "allowing cherry-picking to select private entities cannot be the goal of public policies, particularly the strategic sector like power".
Mentioning her previous letter of June 12 in 2020 to the Prime Minister detailing the "salient pitfalls of the Bill", Banerjee requested the Prime Minister to open up "a broad-based and transparent dialogue on the subject" at the earliest.
It needs a special mention that farmers from Punjab and Haryana have been agitating at the Singhu border protesting against the three contentious farm laws and the proposed Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020. They apprehend that the growing privatisation of the power sector would lead to an abnormal hike in tariff.
Banerjee, who always fought for farmers' rights, stated in her letter: "I write this letter to re-lodge my protest against the Union government's fresh move to place the much-criticized "Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020 in Parliament. It was proposed to be moved last year but many of us had underlined the anti-people aspect of the draft legislation and at least I had detailed out all the salient pitfalls of the Bill in a letter to you on 12 June 2020...Now, I am stunned to hear that the Bill is coming back without any consideration for our reservations, and in fact with some graver anti-people features this time."
The Chief Minister also stated the move to be "the centrist design to make the entire State Electricity grid right from the local substation and appendage of the national grid" and the proposed Bill "strikes at the root of the federal structure" with curtailment of the authority of the states in the power sector just to nourish the "crony capitalism".
"The Electricity Act 2003 had struck a fine balance between the Centre and the states in the management of the power sector while the proposed amendment strikes at the root of that federal architecture. The reduction of the role of the state public utility bodies, the unchecked enhancement of the role of private corporate bodies, and the curtailment of the authority of the states in the power sector together imply a sinister design, whereby crony capitalism will get nourishment at the cost of the states, the public sector and the common people at large," Banerjee's letter read.
She stated: "To summarily recapitulate my arguments as I had conveyed in my earlier letter last year, I reason against the sweeping abdication of the state's pre-eminent role in the power sector" in favour of unregulated and de-licensed private players and "such a laissez faire approach would result in concentration of private profit-focussed utility players in the lucrative urban-industrial segments, while poor and rural consumers would be left to be tended by public sector DISCOMs. In the name of market reforms the state will give up its commanding height and the state PSU will become sick and yelling and air force to serve areas where the corporate body would focus."
Her letter further added: "The avowed objective of the Bill is to provide plural choices to the consumers, even while actually the Bill will finally end up in profiteering by the new service providers through announcements in tariffs and every sector of society will suffer due to increased tariff."
