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people say about us ! Sir, I often happen to
be at your site which is updated regularly. It is quite interesting site. My request
to you would also be to include topics of developmental issues esp in news and
views area, which may interest your site visitors too and it would get more Google
search outcomes for your site........ ONLY SOURCE TO REACH
THE DECISION MAKERS Contact-sureshmehrotra@yahoo.com
The Rural Electrification Corporation(REC)will
shortly be entering into capital market.The Government of India has recently approved
issue of an Initial Public Offer(IPO) by REC of 15.6 crore share of Rs. 10 each
constituting 20% of free issue paid up capital,said REC dashing a go getter Chairman
and Managing Director(CMD)Mr.Anil Kumar Lakhina. Mr.Anil Kumar Lakhina also said that both JBIC &
KfW have assured their continued support to REC for upgrading the T&D System
in other states also in the coming years.
Electricity plays an important role in socio-economic development of rural areas. When India became independent in 1947, electricity was available in only a few villages close to town and cities. Rural Electrification as a planned programme was initiated in the country in 1951 with the launch of First Five Year Plan and as on March 1951 only 3061 villages had access to electricity and 21,000 irrigation pumpsets were energized. The wide spread drought period of 1966-67 focused alternatives on the urgent need to ensure food security raising food grain production. Rural Electrification Programme was accorded priority as an infrastructural input for agricultural production programmes through improved surface irrigation facilities and this led to formation of Rural Electrification Corporation in 1969. Incorporated on July 25, 1969 under the Companies Act 1956, REC is a wholly owned Govt. of India Public Sector Enterprise with a net worth of over Rs. 4198 crore as on 31.3.2006. From
an institution initially dependent wholly on Govt. budgetary support, it has now
evolved into a self-sustaining 'AAA' rated financial institution and have since
2002-03 received its expanded mandate to extend financial assistance for all power
sector needs/requirements including transmission, generation & distribution
both in public & private sector beyond the erstwhile limit on population,
geographical location of plants. 2. What has been the thrust on
Rural Electrification Programme during various During 8th Plan, besides the village electrification and pumpset energization, the emphasis on RE programme also shifted to electrification of rural households, improvement in power distribution system in rural areas and reduction in T&D losses in power supply to rural areas. The Rural Electrification for the 9th Plan aimed at the Rural Electrification & Power Distribution Programme (RE &PD) covering electrification of villages, dalit bastis, hamlets, energization of pumpsets, integrated system improvement and other activities like Kutir Jyoti, small power generation, rural electric cooperatives and consolidation of gains of RE. During the 10th Plan, the major stress of REC has been to meet the need and requirement of State Power utilities for strengthening and upgrading the T&D system aimed at providing reliable and quality power supply to consumers and reduction in T&D losses.During this period, Indian Government also launched the Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme (APDRP) to contain T&D loses. The APDRP has two components loans and incentives.Under the loan component, government. provides funds up to 50% of the project cost of which 25% as grant and 25% loan. The remaining 50% is being provided as counter part funds through loans from REC/PFC. REC has been the lead financial institution in providing counter part funds to various State Power Utilities. 3.
To what extent REC has succeeded in its main activities of expanding Rural REC has made stupendous efforts in the
area of Development of Power Infrastructure in Rural India: Under REC's financed schemes, 3,06,010 villages have been electrified and 85.65 lakh pumpsets have been energized (As on 31.03.2006). Thus 70% of the total villages electrified and 58% of the total pumpset energized have been funded by REC. 4. What steps have been taken by REC towards
Standardisation and (i) REC Specifications & Construction Standards While financial constraints and shortage of power are two major contributing factors for sub-optimal performance of power distribution systems, the situation can be substantially improved within the available resources by adopting innovative and cost-effective technologies. Since its inception in 1969, REC has been playing a lead role for standardization of equipment and uniform construction practices to be adopted throughout the country. Standardization results in uniformity and economy in material procurement, minimized inventory, improved quality and standards of construction activities, all of which leads to overall reduction in costs. Standards also lead to safe and better operation and this is of considerable consequence in the area of rural electrification in a vast country like ours. As a result of sustained efforts of the years, REC has been able to issue 74 material specifications, 234 construction standards and 14 manuals for use by the power utilities/power industry. Due to availability of REC standards & construction practices for various items in RE works, there has been uniform adoption by state power utilities resulting in cost effective and technically sound systems for rural electrification. (ii) State of Art Technologies REC has also been successfully advocating adoption of innovative and cost effective technologies to many state power utilities for improvement in quality and reliability of power supply, thereby enhancing the customer satisfaction. Some of the technologies are 11 KV pole mounted switched capacitors, 11 KV sectionalizers, FRP cross arms, single phase transformers, Completely Self Protected (CSP) transformer, All Aluminium Alloy Conductors (AAAC), Aerial Bunched Cables (ABC), LT switched capacitors, Amorphous Core Distribution transformers, 5 KVA distribution transformers and prepaid metering system. 5. What are the various financing instruments of REC in the T&D Sector? For
accelerating economic growth & achieving higher standards of living, depending
upon the availability of adequate and reliable power at an affordable price, REC
has over the years being consistently expanding and diversifying its loan portfolio
to meet the emerging needs of power sector. Today, REC has in its portfolio, projects
tailor-made suiting to the requirement of power utilities aimed at upgradation
of T&D system and reduction in T&D losses. Some of the existing financial
products of REC are as follows: 6. Whether REC is financing any generation projects and what
have been the From the time, REC received its expanded mandate in 2002 - 03, to finance all kinds of generation projects, from a sanction of Rs. 661 Crore and disbursement of Rs. 92 Crore in that year, the business has grown to Rs. 6006 Crore and Rs. 1553 crore respectively for the year 2005 -06. The sanctions have grown almost 10 times and disbursement 17 times in less than 4 years. The share in private sector has also grown steadily to 36% during 2005 - 06. We are presently negotiating with a number of players to further double the disbursement in generation activity during 2006 -07 and treble by 2008. 7.
What is Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) and REC's role The Indian , in April 2005, launched the new scheme - 'RGGVY' scheme of Rural Electrification Infrastructure and house hold electrification in order to fulfill the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) objective of providing electricity to all households and improving rural electricity infrastructure. The RGGVY scheme is primarily being implemented through single nodal agency i.e. REC. This is one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by REC. It engrosses the rural electrification and in turn overall development of rural India. The emphasis of the scheme is not merely electrification of villages but to provide access to electricity to all rural households and also to cater to the requirement of agriculture and other activities including irrigation pumpsets, small medium industries, Khadi & village industries, cold chains, health care, education and IT. This would facilitate overall rural development, create new employment opportunity and result in poverty alleviation. The services of Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) have been offered to the states for assisting them in the execution of rural electrification projects as per their willingness & requirement under the RGGVY scheme. With a view to augment the implementation capacity of the programme, REC has entered into Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) with NTPC, Power Grid, NHPC and DVC to make available CPSUs project management expertise and capabilities to states wishing to use their services. REC has met the target for creation of rural electricity infrastructure in the record 10169 villages in the states of Bihar, UP, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Uttranchal & Karnataka during 2005-06. REC is now striving to achieve the target of providing electricity infrastructure to another 40,000 villages during 2006 - 07 and so far 11,846 villages have been provided electricity infrastructure. REC hopes to deliver India's rural electricity infrastructure in all its villages within the next three years, by 2009. The programme has unprecedented in size and is, naturally, propelling the organization on to exceptional performance frontiers. 8.
What has been the International Funding Agency's role in financing and REC has secured record external assistance of Rs. 1240 Crores from international bilateral funding agencies viz. Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and KFW, Germany during 2005 -06. · Japan Bank for International Cooperation
(JBIC) assistance ·
Indo German Bilateral Cooperation for Energy Efficiency Program Both JBIC & KfW have assured their continued support to REC for upgrading the T&D System in other states also in the coming years. USAID Assisted Distribution Reforms, Upgrade and
Management (DRUM) Project An alternative model with technical assistance and guidance from Rural Utilities Services (RUS), US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is being developed for financing rural electricity utilities to make them viable and sustainable in the long run through development of community ownership, by exposing project implementers to International technical, financial and managerial best practices, to be tested though pilot projects in collaboration with respective state governments. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) 9. How REC is going to meet the large scale
fund requirements of the various REC is presently putting into place strategic initiatives to accelerate the growth. The panorama of infrastructural development in the power sector provides many exciting opportunities. The fund requirement has dramatically increased to fill the gap in demand and supply. In the recent years banks and financial institutions have been competing with each other & with REC and offering more concessions and facilities to borrowers in power sector to sustain their lending business. REC has been alive to this environmental challenge and has been constantly taking innovative measures which include raising the funds from market at most competitive rates and expansion & diversification of loan portfolio. Of late, REC has initiated entering into statewise/borrowerwise MOUs for large scale lending to meet their expansion programmes. The first such MoU has been entered into with the Govt. of Maharashtra and the three power utilities of the state viz. MahaGenco, MahaDiscom, MSETCL for a record Rs. 15000 Crore funding programme for power projects in the state to be implemented over a period of next three years. Both urban and rural sectors will immediately benefit through commencement of various new power projects in the state, replacing ageing assets and modernizing the transmission & distribution sector. The people of Maharashtra will have an enhanced supply of reliable power, reduction in T&D losses and consequent increase in production capacity of power. With Maharashtra MOU put in place, many more states viz. Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Haryana etc. are now close to entering in MOUs for their long term funding requirement. 10. What are REC's plans for issue of an IPO in the near future? The Government of India has recently approved issue of an IPO by REC of 15.6 crore share of Rs. 10 each constituting 20% of free issue paid up capital. The IPO is being issued for meeting the following objectives: · Enhanced equity base of REC
to enable it to meet the growing investment needs of the power sector.' 11. Whether
REC is contemplating any subsidiary companies in transmission i)
Transmission Sector: REC has undertaken the task of development of transmission
projects to be offered through tariff based competitive bidding for transmission
service. For this, a wholly owned subsidiary company is under formation. 12. What are REC's future plans to mitigate
the aggregate technical and The power sector is one of the prime driving forces of the country's GDP. Reliable power is essential to keep the engines of our economy running.Macroeconomic trends are crystal clear on the need for huge efforts to adopt measures towards increasing generation,improving distribution and extending transmission. This has also underscored the need for developing the transmission sector,whilst reforming the distribution sector. Ageing transmission and distribution infrastructure is not only leading to losses, but is also swallowing precious power availability. As it is, surviving with 50% and 35% losses in many rural and urban areas, respectively, is a tough task indeed. REC will be in the forefront to reform and improve these departments. We are determined to help reduce Aggregate Technical & Commercial losses by 10 to 15% to make the utilities viable and our financing secure. We estimate the improvement
and rejuvenation programmes to cost about Rs. 1,50,000 crore. REC intends to raise
its cumulative business sanctions from Rs. 99,000 crore to Rs. 1,50,000 Crore,
double its annual lending from Rs.8000 crore to 16,000 crore, increase its asset
value from Rs. 25,000 crore to Rs. 50,000 crore and increase its net worth from
Rs. 4,200 Crore to Rs. 6,500 crore by 2009. Das
to be DG CISF ? Will
Paul be RAW Chief ? M L Sharma is still the choice
? Dilip Trivedi gets extension Tripathi to join
Jet-Airways IAS reshuffle in Orissa soon Sudhir
Chandra to be CCIT Delhi ! Majority
of IRS trainees are from Bimaru states ! An officer who
works till late midnight Thyagarajan to be Member SSC ! Making
a beeline for MS flat in RK Puram
New passport offices in the
offing Finance
Minister has a fracture FORUM CLARIFICATION Sir, some officer
has been posting under the name Rajiv Ratan. I am Rajiv Ratan IPS AP'91, and have
never posted on your site. I request that the service and cadre of Rajiv Ratan,
who is posting on your site, may be mentioned. Rajiv Ratan There
should be entry of professionals SM Message for CBDT The members retiring on 31.12.2006 should refrain themselves to be part of placement committee, otherwise people will subscribe motives against them. Poonam All in the services, not the same........... The
politicians and the IAS enjoy a healthy and institutionalised relationship. Very
much as in the family. To say, they enjoy Husband-Wife relationship. So, naturally
all other relationships are trivial, so are other services. They are united to
serve the family on priority then follows the welfare of the subjects. They think
alike and after 10 years they even look alike. King and queen are destined to
be served by the subjects. So, why crib that queen is being looked after well. Rajivrattan
should know that there are many IPS officers who did not opt for IAS or IFS. His
'gold/silver theory' is untenable Aaj Ki Aawaz Really
wrong timing by Advani, Bharat
Kumar R K Arnold to take charge today Rajasthan
Government to have Petroleum Corporation Oberoi hotels rated best Syed Shahabuddin is MD of SBI Mutual Fund |
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