26 Oct 2012Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)
HT CorrespondenT
His power connection

Worked for 26 years in PSEB; took premature retirement in ’06

CHANDIGARH: Jaspal Bhatti, whose swansong Power Cut, a satire on Punjab’s power woes, is due for release on Friday, worked for almost 26 years in the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB).
The board was bifurcated into the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) in 2010, even as Bhatti took premature retirement in 2006 to concentrate on making TV serials and movies.
An electrical engineer who passed out of Punjab Engineering College here in 1978, Bhatti joined the PSEB as an assistant engineer in 1980. His father, NS Bhatti, also an engineer, occupied a senior position in the board at that time.
“He was fond of satire. In the mid-1980s, he used to produce satirical clips for the programme ‘Rang Ch Bhang’ on Jalandhar Doordarshan. He was a fine man, very soft-spoken,” recalled VK Gupta, who worked with Bhatti in the hydroelectric design wing of the Punjab irrigation department, where Bhatti worked for about 10 years on deputation.
Later, Bhatti joined the design wing of the Ranjit Sagar dam. “In view of his interest in satire and movie-making, the majority of his service tenure was in Chandigarh,” added Gupta, who retired as additional superintendent engineer and was six years senior to Bhatti. Rising to the post of senior executive engineer, Bhatti took premature retirement on August 3, 2006.
“Though I never worked with Bhatti, I found him a good man. He didn’t talk much, but his movies and public performances showed that he was concerned about social issues and problems faced by the common man,” said PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director KD Chaudhari.
Talking about Power Cut, Chaudhari said the power corporation would deliberate on issues raised in the movie.

RP Pandove, chief of administration, PSPCL, remembered Bhatti as a jovial person. “But his death has saddened everyone,” he said, adding that Bhatti had made movies on energy conservation and power theft for the power corporation after retirement.