Mumbai power fued may head to legal battle
Recently Maharashtra government with its holding power has asked Tata Power to maintain status quo till 1 July with supply to R-Infra which caters to the Mumbai suburbian customers.
However, Tata Power is putting its foot down on cutting the supply to R-infra and use this power for supplying to its own customers.
Last year, the Supreme Court allowed Tata Power to supply power to its distribution arm, which holds a Mumbai license. Subsequent to this ruling, Tata Power informed R- Infra that it would stop the current supply of 460 given to Reliance Infra. Tata Power threatened to pull the plug off by May first week. This forced the state government to intervene and give a directrative inorder to save the R-Infa customers from power cuts. The directative was given on the basis of the report submitted by the highlevel committe appointed to look into feud.
In the past one year period , 30,000cutomers Reliance customers switched over to Tata Power and to meet the requirement Tata Power is picking power from the spot market.
While it has pulled up Reliance Infra for failing to make alternate arrangements to make-up the shortfall, it has also asked Tata Power to continue supplying 360 mw to Reliance Infra till June 30. From July, Tata Power has been asked to supply 160 mw to its newly-acquired customers thereby bringing the supply to Reliance Infra down from 300 mw to 200 mw. The government says Tata Power will have to continue this supply of 200 mw till March 2011.
Tata Power on the other hand, replied to the stategovernment that ” prima facie do not accept the order of the government of Maharashtra to supply power to Reliance Infra, as it would cause great hardship to our consumers . And keeps the legal option open”.
Meanwhile, responding to a government instruction to enter into long term agreements with power generation companies, Reliance Infra has submitted that it will open bids for 315 mw of power supply from April 1, 2011 as a mid-term arrangement.
The state government has also sought intervention from the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) for a mechanism to ensure that Reliance Infra’s subsidised customers are not burdened with a higher tariff due to the migration of cross-subsidising customers to Tata Power.



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