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SHRI SURESH PRABHAKAR PRABHU (RAJAPUR): Sir, this Bill seeks to amend the Electricity Act, 2003, which I had the good fortune of introducing in the Parliament as the Minister of Power in the previous Shri Vajpayee Government. 

This Bill was drafted with a lot of consultations, deliberations and thoughts to address some of the crucial problems that the country is facing in the power sector.  Of course, any law that is passed by the Parliament can always be reviewed, changed and amended.  If we can amend the Constitution, we can also amend the law.  When the UPA Government came to power it had said in its National Common Minimum Programme that the Electricity Act, 2003 is going to be reviewed.  My good friend Shri K.S. Rao was saying that we need private participation in power sector. The Act was basically designed, among other things, to address that concern as well.  When the Government said that it was going to review that, there was a lot of nervousness in the power sector thinking that the amendment would mean that the Government would be going to roll back some of the very progressive provisions in the law.