Clearly, the Lefts request is more of a palliative for its phobiathat the cross subsidies will be eliminated one fine morning. And, the phobia is borne out of a bitter experience a few years ago, when a former power regulator eliminated cross-subsidies one fine morning. Of course, it did not take effect, when the government went in appeal to the high court. So, rather than talk them out of this fear and convince them on the safeguards in the system to avert such hard landings, the government has succumbed to administering a placebo!
And, while the Left is occupying itself in pursuing such silly objectives, the reform process in states is hardly gathering pace. In fact, an important indicator is the generation capacity addition on the captive front. Industries prefer captive power generation capacity when they dont trust power supplies from the state power utilities, a direct reflection on the reform process. And, in the last year, Indian industry has decided to set up over 20 new captive plants in one of the coal bearing eastern states to power their units!