3. Approach and Methodology of the Study

3. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study is to capture the perspective of Discoms and other stakeholders in regard to key issues and challenges coming in the way of implementation of open access. For this purpose, in addition to the key issues already identified, interactions were held with various stakeholders. Thereafter, the issues were deliberated in the fifth meeting of DUF. A structured questionnaire-based survey using a well-recognized technique was carried out to gain understanding of the severity of issues as perceived by various stakeholders.

3.1 Approach and Methodology

3.1.1 Interactions with Individual Stakeholders

Structured interactions were carried out with seven Discoms and five industrial consumers and consumer associations in seven states with different levels of industrialization, namely, Punjab, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh. Interactions with two system operators and one power exchange were also carried out as a part of this study (Annexure III). The project team interacted with mid-to-senior level officials from Discoms, system operators, power exchange, and consumers, which included directors, chief engineers, general managers, and superintending engineers in charge of commercial, technical, revenue, and project implementation functions. The stakeholder interactions were carried out with over 40 officials, either in person or telephonically, during July–August 2019. The list of points forming the basis of discussions is provided in Annexure IV.

3.1.2 Stakeholder Interaction during the Forum Meeting

The issues identified by the MoP in its consultation paper, the existing practices and proposals figuring in the consultation paper, recommendation of FOR in regard to these, and the issues gathered during one-to-one interaction with the stakeholders served as the backdrop during the fifth meeting of the Forum. Views and suggestions gathered during the deliberations are detailed in Chapter 5.

Conducting Survey with Stakeholders

Impressions of stakeholders, comprising Discoms, consumer associations, power exchange and system operators, who were present at the meeting, were captured through a structured questionnaire to gather an all-round perspective with regard to severity of the five major issues identified by MoP. The survey was carried out during the meeting through a questionnaire. The structured survey form (Annexure V) was used for pairwise comparison of five issues with the aim to gauge their severity by providing relative importance on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 represents equal importance of the two issues considered in each pairwise comparison and 9 represents maximum importance of the selected one as compared to others. Analysis of the inputs gathered from the survey was carried out using AHP to obtain the ranking of the issues for each respondent. The WAA was used to compute consolidated ranking from the response of all the stakeholders, where the ranking of issues varied from stakeholder to stakeholder. Detailed methodology of carrying out the analysis through AHP and WAA is provided in Annexures VI and VII, respectively.