According to India Chapter chairman Hasmukh Shah, the GEB has paid IPPs a whopping Rs 260.95 crore as fuel cost adjustment charges for 1,088 million units bought in the month of June alone.

As against Rs 1.27 per unit as fixed charges and Rs 1.21 per unit variable, FCA for electricity drawn form Essar was as high as Rs 7.37 per unit, GTEC (650 mw plant) Rs 3.51, GIPCL (160 mw plant) Rs 3.90, GIPCL (145 mw plant) Rs 1.26, NTPC Rs 1.72 and that drawn from NPC Rs 1.31 per unit.

Quoting the latest gazette notification issued by power ministry (March 1992), Shah said, the maximum ceiling on additional incentive of return on equity could be 0.7 per cent for EACG percentage increaseabove the normative level of 6000 hours/kw/year. It shall be open to the generating companies and SEBs or other power purchasers to negotiate and fix a suitable lower additional incentive within the above limit. However, he pointed out, naphtha-based thermal plants shall not be reckoned as generation achieved for incentive purpose as ordered by the regional electricity boards or state load despatch centre.

Delivering the presidential address at a seminar on `Electricity Tariff for the Millennium' at Baroda on Saturday, Shah said the GEB has to incur huge losses due to wrongly executed PPAs because of political pressures. And what is more objectionable selling power to the agriculture sector at 20 paise per unit, passing on the burden to the industrial and commercial consumers.

He said that it was because of the high charges levied by IPPs, most of the big industrial houses have commissioned their own captive power plants (CPPs). As per one calculation, the Gujarat-based IPCL, GNFC and GSFC would have beenincurring an annual loss of Rs 250 crore, Rs 150 crore and Rs 120 crore respectively.

Shah said the IEEE is a professional institute of electrical and electronic engineers with over six lakhs members all over the world and has been taking several studies of its kind to rationalise tariff structure. He said it was about time to implement a -- `No FCA, No Subsidy, No Surcharge' -- regime with transparency in the working of SEBs.

Several other speakers at the seminar also expressed fears that with no holds barred incentives given to the IPPs, the country might soon be surplus in power, which the consumers could ill afford.

Former chairman of Central Electricity Authority (CEA) SN Roy there is an undue focus on power generation and not on its affordability. He pointed out that there are no meters for half the electricity consumed. He expressed doubts at the plant load factors of 60 per cent to 62 per cent as compared to 95 per cent in Iran and 80 per cent in Pakistan. "How could the country be globallycompetitive with one of the highest electricity tariff, an important component of raw materials of progress?" he asked.

With Gujarat having the dubious distinction of charging highest Electricity Duty, state energy minister Kaushik Patel said the government has retained noted consultants to suggest ways as to how to reduce the cost of production and check transmission and distribution losses and plug power thefts.GEB chairman chairman Nalin Bhatt said the board has sought legal opinions as to how to deal with various problems.