A layer of complexity is created by the concurrent application of the competition rules and the sector specialized application rules, which increases the risk of the jurisdictional and substantive conflicts. In the above-mentioned chapters, a detailed analysis has been done of the structural, policy/regulatory and institutional issues that affect the competition in the energy sector, the introduction of various policies are needed to address these issues, and the potential advocacy role of CCI in the energy sector.
It has been emphasized that the promotion of competition and public private participation can definitely bridge the demand and supply gap, attain growing investment needs of the society, minimizes energy poverty and also to improve the quality of supply of energy.
There are few recommendations which may be considered by the Commission as follows:
1. There is a need to balance the demand and supply equations through the attracting more and more private players in the energy market technological innovations that will help to increase services.
2. In the Oil and Gas sector, the government to should take the initiative to avoid the abuse of dominance of a particular entity in the energy market through anti-competitive agreements or the cartel formation.
3. In the electricity sector, the government should have uniformity in the regulations and also to reduce monopoly in the supply of fuel in the market. There is a need of restructuring of LDC’s, inducing competition at the retail supply level of electricity and allowing third party access in the electricity market.
4. With regard to the jurisdictional issue between the Competition Commission and the sectoral regulators, CCI may be given the right to participate before the proceedings of the other regulators of India. There should be obligatory inclusion of all sector experts including competition experts in deciding a matter. Government may perhaps consider establishing a common Appellate Court for the regulators & CCI on the lines of UK competition model.
5. A Regulator’s Consultative Group may be introduced, which will regularize the exchange of information and promote healthy interaction between the commission and sector regulators. The recent development of Eminent Persons Group is a welcome move and on the same lines be considered this competition-mandated consultative group consisting of sector regulators, field experts and commission officers.
The Competition Commission of India should consider and review the recommendations provided by the various Committees and should demarcate the issues in short-term and the long term manner. This will definitely help the CCI to resolve the issues that affect competition.
In the Oil & Gas sector, the CCI at this point of time should focus on pricing issues and jurisdiction of the regulator on competition issues. Subsequently, the Commission and MoPNG could jointly advocate restructure the environmental clearance mechanism, which is of utmost importance to save the earth from global warming.
In energy sector, the most significant changes that have been introduced are in the electricity sector. Currently, in order of priority of resolving the issues of the electricity industry, the CCI should initially concentrate on the generation segment because of the most debatable segment, followed by the distribution and lastly, the transmission segment. But it has to be kept into consideration that every initiative should be concurrent to the policies and regulations and there shouldn’t be any conflict.
The main institutional issue that has to be looked into is the interface between the regulators and the competition commission. This is still a burning topic regarding the jurisdictional conflict of both specific regulator and the Competition Commission of India.
The advocacy role CCI literally means that it should frame a well-researched and the structure case with its solution on each competition issue which are in conflict. Then, this should be presented to their respective regulator in the form of advocacy paper. Subsequently, a Policy Discussion Forum(PDF) i.e be established to have a platform for discussion and to give their consensus on the basis of advocacy papers. Several institutions are also ready to support CCI in making the advocacy papers on the urgent issues which are important for India’s economy.
Currently, CCI and PNGRB are battling over the anti-competitive practices in the oil and gas sector. Thus the solution of the ongoing turf war between PNGRB and CCI, now it’s the time of the Supreme Court to decide which regulator has the jurisdiction when an issue falls within a specialized sector such as petroleum.
Therefore, it is the urgent need to look into the conflict and come up with an appropriate solution to maintain the coherence between competition regulator and oil and gas regulator, so that they should be complimentary to each other and should have an ultimate aim of consumer welfare.
Thus, the issue of regulation and competition policy in the energy sector is very complex and debatable. India at this crucial period, should adequately address the challenges of the 21st century such as, energy sustainability, jurisdictional issue, climate change, energy poverty and adaption. These are the core challenge that has to be resolved. However, any effective change in the energy sector will take time and painstaking efforts will be required ensure the creation of competitive markets.