New Delhi, Aug 21: Welcoming the enactment of Electricity Bill, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) today sought competitive bidding for attracting new investments. In a submission to government, the industry chamber said the regulator should be entrusted with the task of ensuring competition in the sector.
It further said in case competitive bidding was not feasible, benchmark tariffs should be pronounced by regulator as a ceiling limit in order to minimise regulatory uncertainty and allow developers a free hand in financial engineering of the project.

In the interim period existing utilities including public sector players would have a significant role in capacity building.
CII also suggested that long term debt financing be made available to power projects to ensure lower depreciation rates which would prevent front loading of projects.
Incentives and disincentives should be put in place for ensuring optimum utilisation of capacities.
On fixation of tariffs, the chamber favoured a three year policy which would be replaced by multi year tariffs of five years.
Bureau Report