At a high-level meeting held here on Wednesday between power minister P R Kumaramangalam and deputy chairman Planning Commission, K C Pant, it was decided that a model draft document on a comprehensive Power Bill would be tabled for approval at the forthcoming chief ministers' conference to be held on February 26. The meeting to be chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would also be attended by finance minister Yashwant Sinha.

"We had met to discuss various power sector reforms to be initiated," power minister P R Kumaramangalam told PTI.

The meeting, attended by various officials from the power ministry including Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) chairman S L Rao and director general of National Centre for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) Rakesh Mohan also discussed the issues relating to restructuring and unbundling of state electricity boards (SEBs) and tariff issues.

Official sources said during the meeting it was felt that most of the states favoured mandatory capping on subsidies through Central legislation and law should enforce states to give subsidies through Budget. Sources said that during the meeting, Pant observed that economy was now picking up and there was a need to take drastic reform measures in power sector as investments are not flowing into the sector.

The power ministry said the purpose of the Bill should be to make the entire system more transparent and clearly spell out the purpose of reforms besides having mandatory guidelines.

Pant during the meeting also said that the time was ripe for introducing power sector reforms when a national level desire for better power supply had been realised by politicians and consumers and warned that if the government was unable to introduce the required reforms now then it would not be possible in the future. The meeting was also attended by member, Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahuluwalia, power secretary V K Pandit, special secretary (power) A H Jung and Central Electricity Authority chairman R N Srivastava.