PSEB Engineers Association demands white paper on proposed restructuring of board

Vinod Kumar Gupta

Publication Date 25/7/2009

Ropar: PSB Engineers Association has demanded that Punjab Government should issue a white paper on the proposed restructuring of the state electricity board.

PSEB Engineers Association demands white paper on proposed restructuring of board
H S Bedi President of the Association said that there should be complete transparency in the restructuring of the state electricity board and all the stakeholders should be taken in to confidence before finalizing the formation of companies. He was addressing the press conference at thermal plant after the executive meeting of the association.

The association is of firm view that only trading of power should be taken out of the present board and given to a company and rest of the works should remain with the second company.

All the issues related to restructuring must be debated and only after arriving at a decision by all stakeholders the action should be taken Padamjit Singh Patron of the association said that there is urgent need of capacity addition in Punjab otherwise the power position is going to be worse with every passing year.

In the present scenario the best alternative is to execute Rajpura Plant through state funding and Gidderbaha plant in joint venture with NTPC. State Govt. has to arrange 20 percent equity which will not be more than Rs. 300 crore per year during the execution of the project and the remaining amount can be arranged through loans, he said Bhupinder Singh General Secretary of the association said that there is urgent need to control the meance of theft of power.

The time has come when the state government should declare all out war against power theft . At present politicians in the state are not supporting the engineers to curb the theft of power and there are verval orders that no motor connections should be checked for theft of power.

The transmission system of the state has been overloaded resulting in frequent trippings of lines. Consumers are the worst sufferers on this account. Adequate funds are given for strengthening the transmission system.

The execitive discuused the issue of downgrading of ACR’s of engineers working at Ropar thermal plant by the ex GM of the plant. The association is if view that all these ACR’s should be considered null and void and action shoiuld be taken against the GM .