Supreme Court Allows Open Access in Maharashtra

The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition of MSEDCL for a stay on Open Access in Maharashtra. For those in the industry who have been tracking this issue for a while now, the Supreme Court action came quickly (only very recently the HC had dismissed the stay as well) and is a big relief.
Details are covered in the news article here and here.
Its noteworthy that the Supreme Court has refused to stay the granting of Open Access permissions – the courts have not ruled on the Cross-subsidy issue as yet, the SC has merely said that till such a ruling is made, MSEDCL cannot stay the grant of open access permissions.
For several people this is a big relief – as an example there are many windmills that are generating power for a long time and feeding into the grid without getting paid as the open access permission was withheld. We can now hope that MSEDCL’s high handedness will subside and they will work in true spirit towards power market reform.
Updated in September 2011:
An interesting article providing context and summarizing the issues is available here.
Also, MSEDCL put a snapshot of the judgement, with their interpretation – that’s available here.
The on-ground situation is that matter remains unresolved in MERC as of today. However, MSEDCL has granted “open access” to certain wind generators on a selective basis, and against some cross-subsidy commitments. However, true “open access” remains elusive.