The Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam, a wholly owned subsidiary of the UPPCL, has applied for a holding a parallel licence for distributing power in Greater Noida and in this connection the UPPCL has filed a petition before the power regulator, the UP State Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPSERC).

To take a decision on it, the power regulator will be holding a public hearing at Greater Noida on October 1 where all stakeholders, including consumers, have been invited to attend.

Power distribution in Greater Noida was handed over to the private company following an agreement with the then UP State Electricity Board (UPSEB) and NPCL during the then Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party coalition headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav in December 1993.

The contention provided by the UPPCL behind its pursuit of licence is that the NPCL has not been able to meet the power demand in the area which has been growing by leaps and bounds. It also argues that the NPCL did not set up its own power plant of 45 MW-capacity as required under the agreement that it signed in 1993.

“The government has to step in since the industrial expansion in Greater Noida has been badly hit by the shortage of power,” said an official of the UPPCL.

“Besides, the NPCL is reluctant to supply power to the villages around Greater Noida and is ignoring the protests carried out by the locals,” the official said.

The NPCL, on the other hand, is opposed to the UPPCL’s move. “Our opposition is based on the provisions of the Indian Electricity Act 2003, which lays emphasis on the credit worthiness and financial competence of the license,” said Rajiv Goel, an official of the NPCL.

“The UPPCL is a bankrupt company and financially not competent to apply for a license,” Goel added.

“We are serving over 50,000 consumers that include industrial, commercial, domestic and 2,000 rural connections,” he added.

On the issue of setting up a 45 MW power plant, the NPCL maintains that while it purchases the said amount of power from the UPPCL, it also procures an additional 25 MW from independent sources under the “Open Access Regime”, as provided by the Indian Electricity Act 2003.

“We had applied for setting up a 500 MW thermal power plant in Mirzapur, but the UP government has not responded to our request,” said Goel.“It will be a drag on the state exchequer since the UPPCL seeks to set up its own power distribution infrastructure in Greater Noida, where our power distribution network already exists”, said Goel.