The State Government in a Cabinet meeting on Monday put its stamp on unbundling of the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB). The decision would pave ways of forming four separate companies — one each for generation, transmission, distribution and holding company — in the State with zero liability. The State is to utilise the fund of Rs4,400 crore for this purpose, recently granted by the Centre under a financial restructuring package.
“According to the Structural Reforms Act of 2003, today the state government unbundled JSEB, to be looked after by four new companies — JSUVNl, JUSNl, JUUNl and JBVNl — already been formed in the month of June-July,” said Principal Secretary of Energy Department Vimal Kirti Singh.
For this unbundling, one parent holding company has been formed of which the present JSEB chariman SN Verma will be the President and Managing Director.
Singh said that these four companies will be headed by four Managing Directors namely, JSUVNl by SN Verma, JUSNl by VS Jha, JUUNl Vikram Gaud and JBVNl by KK Soan.
These companies will immediately take over the JSEB as soon as the notification is issued by the Government, said Singh. He also assured that the cost of energy charges will not be affected by the restructuring of the Board as the rates are decided by the State power regularity commission.
According to Singh, this restructuring will cost Rs4,400 crore for which bonds of Rs2,200 crore would be issued by the State government. Half amount (Rs1100 crore) of which will immediately will be paid back by the centre. “For the remaining Rs2200 crore bank loans will be restructured,” added Singh.
The centre may release funds further if these four companies achieve the set milestones, guidelines for which have already been issued for these new companies, he said. The money is being released for short term liabilities of which Rs2500 crore will be given to the Damodar Valley Project while Rs1500 crore will be issued to the Tenughat Vidhut Nigam limited. “The TVNl may utilise this fund for the expansion of the company, which is being delayed due to some legal problems,” said Singh.
After the restructuring, assets, human resource as well as office space will be distributed among the development, transmission, distribution generation companies which will further take three to four months. “Power Finance Corporation has been appointed as a consultant while the World Bank has also given its consent to establish these four companies effectively,” said Singh.
A special team of World Bank will be coming on January 9 for this, he added. Referring the example of West Bengal where it has already been restructured and the three companies brought a profit of Rs88 crore this year. Singh said it will also be profitable for Jharkhand also. Due to a stay order by the Jharkhand High Court on the proposal, it got delayed here, he added.
A tripartite agreement related to the restructuring of JSEB was also signed by Jharkhand Electricity Supply Technicians Workers Union on Monday. Power Minister Rajendra Singh also promised to start the process of regularizing JSEB workers within three months of the restructuring. The agreement was signed only after the assurance of regularising the temporary workers and the verified list of those workers to be put before the first board of directors for approval within three months of restructuring. A total of 20
proposals were passed in Monday’s Cabinet meeting.