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Plan panel
seeks public comments on Regulatory Reforms Bill
The Economic Times, May 24, 2010
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The
Planning Commission is seeking comments from
various stakeholders on the Regulatory Reforms
Bill, which aims at setting up a commission to
oversee the regulations in 12 infrastructure
sectors, including power, airport and gas.
"The
draft bill is being placed in the public domain
for eliciting views and opinions in the nature and
extent of legislative action necessary for
reforming the regulation of key infrastructure
services," the Planning Commission said.
The
plan panel, along with non-governmental
organisation CUTS International, had recently
organised a round table of experts from various
fields for eliciting their views and opinions and
has also send the draft bill to various industry
bodies and financial institutions.
The
Regulatory Commission will issue licences; specify
the principles relating determination of tariffs
and other charges; enforce standards with respect
to quality and reliability of services; set
performance standards; adjudicate disputes and;
aid and advice the government on public utility
industry matters, among other things.
"The
need for such an initiative arises because
economic liberalisation has distanced the
relationship between state ownership and the
responsibility for providing infrastructure
services, as compared to the earlier arrangement
where infrastructure was provided almost
exclusively by the public sector," the Planning
Commission said in the preface to the bill.
Earlier, the plan panel had come out with an
approach paper on regulatory reforms, pointing out
that there was a need to bring all watchdogs under
a common head as there are many independent
regulators while a number of sectors do not have
them at all.
India
has many sector-specific watchdogs like TRAI for
telecommunications and broadcasting, IRDA for the
insurance sector and SEBI for the capital market.
However, social sector does not have any
independent regulator while the energy sector is
not regulated at all.
Earlier Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek
Singh Ahluwalia had said, "The purpose of the
draft regulatory reform bill is to bring
uniformity in various approaches to regulatory
reforms... Civil society could play an important
role in ensuring that regulatory capture does not
take place, which will handicap the independence
of regulatory commissions."
The
new commission would be applicable to electricity,
telecommunications and internet, broadcasting and
cable TV, posts, airports, ports, railways and
rapid transit system, highways, oil ans gas, coal,
water supply and sanitation, and waterways
sectors.
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