New Delhi
Within days of assuming charge, Power Minister Veerappa Moily has restructured the expert panel appointed by his predecessor Sushilkumar Shinde to look into the massive failure of power transmission grids.
The membe
rs of the panel headed by Central Electricity Authority ( CEA) chairman A S Bakshi has been expanded to seven people, including outside experts, sources said.
The panel, which originally had three members, was set up by Shinde in the wake of Northern Grid failure on July 30, that impacted over 30 crore people.
Now, four more members, including Professor S C Srivastava from IIT Kanpur, Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission member A Velayutham and CEA member K K Agrawal are part of the panel, sources said.
The two others members of the originally- constituted committee – Power Grid Corp chairman and managing director R N Nayak and Power System Operation Corp Chief Executive Officer S K Soonee – would continue to be part of the panel.
Bakshi would continue to be chairman of the committee, that is expected to submit its report in a fortnight.
Shinde, who had the longest stint as the countrys Power Minister, was made the Home Minister while Moily was given the additional charge of Power.
The shifting happened on July 31 – when failure of Northern, Eastern and North Eastern grids impacted more than 60 crore people. The collapse happened less than 24 hours after the Northern Grid tripped and was later restored.
Sources said the decision to reconstitute the expert panel came amid criticism from various quarters that the initial committees report might not have an unbiased perspective.
Officials said Moily today visited the National Load Despatch Centre ( NLDC) – which control grids countrywide – to generally review the current situation.
Faced with one of the worlds worst power crisis, the Power Ministry as well as the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission ( CERC) are making all out efforts to ascertain the reasons behind the grid failures.
Moily has called a meeting of chief ministers of eight states and administrator of the union territory of Chandigarh on August 6.
– PTI
