Role of ERCs:

A National Electricity Policy is one of the key instruments for providing policy guidance to the Electricity Regulatory Commissions in discharge of their functions and to the Central Electricity Authority for preparation of the National Electricity Plan.

The Regulatory Commissions have been mandated to regulate utilities on the primary of pre-determined indices on the quality of power supply. Such parameters could be frequency and duration of interruption, time for restoration of supply, percentage defective meters and waiting list of new links. NEP envisages drawing up a road-map for declaration of Reliability Index (RI) of supply of power to consumers for all cities and towns and also for rural areas. The data of RI will be compiled through CEA for publication. This is expected to set up benchmarks for improvement and bring in competition.

SERCs would be undertaking segregation of technical and commercial losses through energy audits. Energy accounting and publishing the output of such accounting has been made mandatory along with a deadline of March, 2007. The SERCs would also specify the standards for reliability and quality of supply so as to bring these in line along with international practices through the year 2012.