Jishnu Baruah takes oath of office as new Chairman of CERC

New Delhi: Jishnu Baruah took oath of the office as new Chairman of Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), the key regulator of power sector in India. Union Minister for Power, New and Renewable Energy RK Singh administered the oath of office to Jishnu Baruah as the new CERC Chairman at Shram Shakti Bhawan on Thursday.

Barua is a 1988-batch retired Indian Administrative Service (Retd. IAS) officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre. Prior to his retirement in August 2022, he was Chief Secretary of Assam. Prior to his appointment as the State’s Chief secretary, he had worked in various capacities in the Assam and the Central Governments. Post retirement, Barua held the charge of Chairperson of Assam Power Distribution Company Limited. Jishnu Barua holds M Phil degree in Defence and Strategic Studies, PG (History) Degree and Graduation (Philosphy) degree.

With this, Barua has succeeded PK Pujari, whose extended tenure in the Commission got over in June 2022.

During the interaction with the new Chairperson of CERC, Singh praised the good work done by Baura during his stint as Chairperson of the Assam Power Distribution Company Ltd and said that the power system in the country has improved significantly in recent years. He added the current capacity is enough to cater to the electricity demand. However, since the economy is growing at close to 7 percent and the electricity demand at 10 percent, therefore the power system needs to ready to cater to this increasing demand for the next decade or so. The Union Minister said that with ease of doing business and transparency, the investments in the power sector has been growing. He however said that there was need to keep working towards ensuring a enabling investment climate in the sector.

The CERC is a statutory body of the Central Government. It is responsible for regulating and determining tariffs for inter-state transmission of electricity, issuing licences to persons to function as transmission licensee and electricity trader with respect to their inter-state operations.

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