The Hindu Business Line : Power regulators to develop info management system — Aim is to usher in greater regulatory certainty

The proposed system seeks to improve the quality of the regulatory decision-making process and to provide a framework for the interface between the regulator and regulated utilities across the country.

New Delhi , Feb. 17

AS the country's fledgling regulatory establishment struggles to achieve uniformity in decision-making in key sectors, power sector regulators have decided to develop a Regulatory Information Management System (RIMS).

This is being done to enable a higher degree of coordination and uniformity of approach among the Regulatory Commissions across the country and to usher in greater regulatory certainty in the power sector.

The proposed RIMS seeks to improve the quality of the regulatory decision-making process and to provide a framework for the interface between the regulator and regulated utilities across the country. The Forum of Regulators, constituted under the Electricity Act, 2003, and comprising the chiefs of the Central and State Electricity Regulatory Commissions, has invited quotations for the development of a RIMS.

"Once this kind of a management information system is developed, regulators from across the country could get access to authentic database on power sector performance across the country and also arrive upon a broad-based commonality in decision-making. The proposed RIMS is meant to provide a framework based on which regulators could develop suitable software package," an official involved in the exercise said.

The RIMS is expected to ensure that a format is developed for obtaining required information from the utilities for use by the regulators during the regulatory process.

It also aims at providing access to authentic data on power sector performance in the country, based on uniformly agreed key performance indicators covering areas such as quality of service, tariff issues and policy, strategy and new initiatives. The system will aid the electricity regulators in monitoring and benchmarking the performances of the regulated entities by defining standard definitions of the various benchmark parameters, including aggregate technical and commercial losses, receivable and transmission losses.

"The RIMS is expected to be designed in such a manner so as to minimise the problem of asymmetry in information during the regulatory process," an official said.

Also to streamline the regulatory process, the RIMS is likely to include an accounting code for reflecting accounting data which should be maintained at the utility end, and be obtained from the utilities in the above sectors, for example, issues relating to assets, depreciation and loan details.

The framework for non-accounting code relating to performance-related measures and business transaction is to be maintained.

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