The Orissa high court has stayed the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) order that allowed Jindal Stainless Ltd (JSL) to sell power from its captive power plant in Orissa to its plant at Hissar in Haryana.
?The high court has passed an interim stay order and restrained JSL from selling power to the Hissar plant,? said government counsel Nirmal Chandra Panigrahi. The case has been posted to April 22, 2009.
?Since JSL has not started exporting power, it can?t transmit the surplus power to Hissar till the next hearing in view of the court stay order, ? said PK Jena, state energy secretary.
The CERC, while disposing of a petition by JSL?s Hissar plant authorities, allowed the sale of power from Orissa. The Hissar chapter of JSL had sought permission from the CERC to buy 75-mw residual power from JSL?s captive power plant in Orissa.
The Orissa government, however, has challenged the CERC order. The state energy secretary has filed a petition in the Orissa high court praying for squashing the CERC order. The state government has stated that as per the MoU signed between JSL and the Orissa government, the stainless steel company is supposed to offer the residual power from its captive power plant at Dubri in Orissa?s Jajpur district to the state government. Since JSL has signed the MoU in 2006, it was fully aware of the provisions of the Electricity Act 2003.
But JSL, without the knowledge of the state government, is proposing to sell power outside the state. To avoid trouble, the company had directly approached the CERC, instead of going to the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission. The company has also bypassed the state government and made Orissa Power Transmission Corporation Ltd a party.