Times of India: Bathinda: Wednesday, July 04, 2018.
The fact came
to fore after PSPCL employees’ union convener Gursewak Singh sought information
under the RTI Act.
Punjab State
Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has to pay Rs 446.27 crore to private thermal
power plants in Punjab for a period of 10 months (April 1, 2017 to January 31,
2018) for undrawn power (not drawing any electricity).
As per the
power purchase agreements (PPA) made with private plants during the previous
SAD-BJP government, PSPCL has to pay to private players even if the electricity
is not drawn from these plants. Punjab has three private-owned power plants.
The amount is to be recovered from consumers in various categories and rate of
recovery is determined by Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission as per
the Electricity Act, 2003, and state tariff/MYT, 2014.
The fact came
to fore after PSPCL employees’ union convener Gursewak Singh sought information
under the RTI Act.
Apart from
this, power generation was costing Rs 4.76 per unit from Bathinda-based Guru
Nanak Dev thermal plant (GNDTP) before it was closed on January 1, 2018, if the
plant was to run at % load factor. The coal consumption at GNDTP was 0.647 kg
per unit (kg/kWh).
While closing
all four units of GNDTP, the government had made varied claims of cost of
production with Punjab finance minister Manpreet Badal even repeatedly claiming
that the electricity produced costed the state over Rs 11per unit from GNDTP.
The RTI
information is based on questions raised by leader of opposition Sukhpal Khaira
in the state assembly and replied by state power minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar
in the last assembly session. As the opposition had walked out of he session,
the answers were not had come into the open.
Gursewak
Singh said, “I had received the RTI response only few days ago from the deputy
secretary power. With it the false claims of the state government over price of
power generation has come to fore and it has also been cleared that hundreds of
crores are being paid to private players without even getting electricity and
this burden is being borne by the consumers”.