Impressed by various initiatives taken towards unbundling and restructuring of the power sector by the Centre and various state governments, Enron wants to be a buyer and seller of power for the end-user without owning any assets. The draft of Electricity Bill 2000 has a made a mention of the term trader instead of marketeer.

Enron has already attempted the role of marketeer in Central America, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and various European countries. "For Enron, the Indian market is very powerful. However, there should be a right environment and competitiveness for a marketeer," said, Jane Wilson, Enron vice-president (government and regulatory affairs).Wilson told The Financial Express on Tuesday that there was political will fuelled by financial difficulties in India and this has led to a lot of action in the Indian power sector. "There has been transparency in the functioning of electricity regulators and the latest draft of the electricity bill 2000 is a step in the right direction," she noted.

Wilson, who earlier spoke at a seminar on "Power reforms: regulatory tariff orders," stressed the need for a change in the existing structure from state monopoly to competitive market and set a level-playing field "for the benefit of the end-user." "Restructuring makes the assets more attractive to the investor while in privatisation, sale of state-owned assets is involved to raise revenue," she said.

She also called for the complete unbundling of the power sector wherein the generator, distributor and marketeer or trader would have to compete with each other. "This exercise should be accompanied by corporatisation and deregulation of price and third-party access," she said.

Enron vice-president said that in complete unbundling, the customer would have a choice and there should be an independent regulator "to ensure that the entire structure works".

Wilson warned that if there was no competition "critics of power sector reforms will be vindicated."

"India will also lose out on foreign investment and the benefit of competition," she said.

Enron is already involved in exploring possibilities of third-party power sale to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Dabhol Power Company, which commissioned its 740 MW plant in May 1999, has offered to sell 50 MW initially to Karnataka at a per unit cost exceeding Rs 3.50.

Interestingly, Karnataka, which has undertaken a massive reform and unbundling programme in the power sector, has already sent positive signals to the company.