Let there be light
Few state governments have fully realised the consequences of the disastrous years of power sector reforms.

Editorial -- Real competition please!
Public utilities are a natural monopoly. It is impractical to allow the consumer to choose the wire that connects electricity to his house. That’s why even private utility companies like TEC and BSES enjoy virtual monopolies.

Idle capacities
How much does that amount to? Not much really. Less than 27 per cent of the total available generation capacity actually flows in as revenue. Yet the government does not seem to realise that large scale capacity addition is not as important as properly utilising the capacity that the country has.

Submerged in controversy
For the last 45 years the Indian government has waxed eloquent on the need to exploit the country's hydro potential. This has, however, remained a pipe dream as hydropower has been consistently on the decline (see table alongside).

Securitising SEB receivables
While everyone is talking about the financial health of the power sector and are tending to lay the blame at the door of the state electricity boards (SEBs), one also needs to take a look at why the SEBs are behaving the way they do.

The honeymoon is over...
When private investment was invited in the Indian power generation sector in 1991, no one had imagined it would take the government a decade to realise its folly. Perhaps, Indian bureaucrats lacked foresight. Trying to fight power shortage by increasing generating capacity, it sought to fix a long-term problem (crippled State Electricity Boards) with a short-term solution.

Regulators -- Walking a tight rope
The Indian power sector is one of the leading sectors where effects of the reforms policies are fast manifesting. Even as the debate over power sector reforms continues in the mainstream media unfortunately it has remained at the preliminary levels betraying the lack of understanding of complexities by the captains of industry, government, and media.

Power privatisation in the UK
The two principles that survived the political process in Britain were, first, that efficiency is the primary objective, and second that competition is the vehicle for accomplishing that objective.

"Managing transition vital"
Tata Energy Research Institute (Teri) is a premier research organisation focusing on energy and environmental issues. In a freewheeling interview with Nitin Chittal of FE-Thinktank, Teri director, Dr R K Pachori spoke extensively on the ongoing reforms process in the power sector.