Post Electricity Act, 2003, the Indian Power Sector entered into a phase of market reforms, targeted largely at bringing competition in wholesale procurement of power. The benefits of power market developed thus far have been limited to distribution licensees and Open Access consumers, who have access to competing options for power procurement.The sectorial reforms have had limited and varying impact on the performance of distribution segment, with some states leading the performance and some yet to catch up. Unmetered consumption, electricity access especially using distribution RE and Standards of Performance need special attention. The proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003 have addressed some of these gaps. Additionally, an era of choice of supply to all consumers is to dawn upon the sector through carriage and content separation as proposed in the amendments. The operational as well as regulatory challenges to the introduction of carriage and content need to be deliberated with stakeholders for their buy in. The proposed amendments also address the need for promoting RE through alternate means such as RGO, and promotion of smart grids. Deemed licensee status for railways and metro services would resolve some of the regulatory ambiguities.Reorganisation of tariff categories should precede with an assessment of impact on revenue realisation by utilities and on consumers' bills. Introduction of DBT would make low tariffs for lower consumption slabs dispensable. Reduction in regulated tariff for RE, as delineated in ERC Tracker, is a reflection of the impact the competitive process has brought about across the sector. However, generic levellised tariff obfuscates higher nominal tariff that procuring DISCOMs would pay post the application of escalation factor which needs to be explicitly notified, along with the first year's tariff. In its endeavour to assist regulatory and policy formulation for the sector, CER organised a five-day Regulatory Research Camp (RRC) on Long-term Demand Forecasting and Power Procurement Planning, in July, 2018. The outcome of the workshop would assist SERCs in framing regulations for the same. A report on the same would be published by CER.The online discussion forum of CER, is an online platform for deliberating regulatory and policy issues. It can be accessed at CER's web portal. We request your feedback for making CER's activities and outputs more relevant to the sector
