The government on Friday introduced a Bill in Parliament which seeks to enable consumers to choose their electricity suppliers and penalise institutions violating the grid power supply.

Introducing the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2014, in the Lok Sabha, power minister Piyush Goyal said the legislation seeks to usher in much-needed reforms in the power sector and safeguard consumers interest.

The Bill seeks to replace the Electricity Act 2003, which was enacted to consolidate laws relating to generation, distribution, transmission, trading and use of electricity. The amendments proposed in the Bill is based on the recommendations of the 12th Plan Working Group of the Planning Commission.

Envisaging to allow the consumers to choose their electricity suppliers, the power ministry has proposed to issue multiple supply licensees by segregating the carriage (distribution sector) from content (power supply business) while continuing with the carriage as a regulated activity.

Seeking to protect consumer interest, the Bill proposes to cap the tariff for retail sale of electricity through the regulator and one of the supply licensees would be a government controlled company.

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