The power cell, set up on paper some four months ago, as a linchpin in the Energy Ministry, to facilitate private sector participation in power development and determine a suitable tariff structure, still remains a nonstarter.

This is disquieting, to say the least. Because follow-up work on the 10 MOUs signed by us with reputed private foreign companies to generate 2000 MW of electricity at a cost of 2.50 billion US dollar, is going to be delayed. The MOUs carry a stipulation that if an accord on power tariff and other terms and conditions were not finalised within a year of signing them they would automatically lapse, unless mutually extended. The exercise for an extension of the Memoranda of Understanding, if it comes to that, is bound to be quite embarrassing, not to speak of the possibility of hitting the dead-end in some cases.

While the World Bank consultant is to Join the cell next month to review the MOUs and help us formulate a model Power Purchase Agreement for both sides, our experts must be able to take up their posts soon enough to make things work.

It Is understood that local technocrats are shying away from the cell because the salaries and perks being offered to them do not quite compensate for their two-year stay in it. This aspect needs to be sympathetically attended to no doubt; but the over-all approach should be mutually accommodative because we have not Suite hit the energy Jack-pot as yet. So far as lelr stakes in the parent departments go, these will have to be protected by all means.