Punjab purchased power worth

Rs 28,489 crore during last six years

Rajinder Kaur/ DAILY POST

Ropar

Punjab has purchased 86,336 million units of power in last six years’ worth Rs. 28,489 crore and did not invest a penny in new power projects as all the thermal projects envisaged in this period have been handed over to private parties, said PSEB Engineers Association president H.S.Bedi.

He said that Punjab had heavily depended on power purchase during all these years and power purchase bill of Punjab was so high that five new thermal plants could have been set up with this amount. He said due to the policy lapse of successive state governments resulting from failure to plan for capacity addition in a planned and systematic manner, PSEB had to meet its growing energy requirement by resorting to extra short term power purchase at

exorbitant rates leading to financial crunch, which was then taken as the ground for not adding capacity to meet future energy requirements.

The state government after giving approval to 500 MW Lehra-Mohabbat stages- II

Plant in 2003-04, took a policy decision to procure power to bridge demand-supply gap rather than adding new generation capacity. As a consequence, the dependence on power purchase increased from 31.05 per cent of availability in 2005-06 to 37.85 per cent in 2006-07 and further to 41.48 per cent in 2007-08. The power purchase bill also increased from just Rs. 2405 crore in 2005-06 to Rs. 6020 crore in 2007-08.

Bedi further elaborated that the most disturbing trend during this period was increasing dependence on short term power purchase through traders which is the costliest component of power purchase. The short term power purchase bill increased from Rs. 542 crore in 2005-06 to Rs. 2285 crore in 2007-08 an increase of four times in just 2 years.

He said the average rate also jumped from Rs. 3.24 per unit to Rs. 7.12 per unit in just 3 years. Precious funds which could have been utilised for setting up new generation capacity were instead utilised to buy high cost power from the market which resulted in putting PSEB into a debt trap.

The last thermal project executed in state sector was Lehra-Mohabbat Stage II which was commissioned in 2008. During the last ten years, restricted maximum demand increased from 5013 to over 8400 MW. The unrestricted demand projected by Central Electricity Authority(CEA) by the end of 11th plan is 10000 MW.

Even in private sector no capacity addition is expected in Punjab this year, he maintained.