Punjab power engineers demand merger of PSPCL and PSTCL

Punjab power engineers have demanded the merger of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited for more efficiency and coordination

Punjab power engineers have demanded the merger of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) for more efficiency and coordination.

The working of PSPCL and PSTCL is purely technical in nature, their performance is vital for the development of the state. (Representational Photo ( HT File Photo))

The board of directors of the merged corporation should be formed purely on the professional competency instead of incorporating officers in their official capacity, the engineers have demanded.

Ajay Pal Singh Atwal, general secretary of the PSEB Engineers Association, said that there is an urgent need for the merger of PSPCL and PSTCL. The lack of coordination is not only causing power-related issues between the two corporations but is also the cause of delay in release of industrial connections due to lack of cooperation.

Due to lack of timely planning and upgradation of 220KV and 66KV transmission systems, many industrial connections remain pending in the industrial hubs of Punjab. This is not only a loss of revenue to the corporation but also undermines the efforts of the state to improve its ease of doing business rankings.

Further being two separate entities, has resulted in increase of cost of capital projects due to non-utilisation of resources mainly land by either organisation for augmenting or constructing new sub-stations in the vicinity of already existing substations of other organisation. Land or building of 66KV substation will not be used for augmentation to 220KV, similarly, 220KV substations will not be used to augment/ addition of 66/11KV capacity.

Due to lack of coordination between PSPCL and PSTCL, the issue of mismatch of SEM and SCADA real time data took considerable time to resolve, PSPCL had to pay almost 100 crores per year for UI charges.

Moreover, separate inventories for similar items have to be maintained by both corporations, as the procurement quantities get reduced it becomes difficult to obtain bulk purchase discounts. Further, this bifurcation of erstwhile PSEB is against the latest global business practice that for better efficiency, a company has to go for backward/forward integration.

V K Gupta,spokesperson, All India Power Engineers Federation said that even as per the provisions of Electricity Act 2003, AIPEF has urged all the state governments to re-merge all power utilities in states with functional components of generation, transmission, and distribution like KSEB Ltd and HPSEB Ltd.

The working of PSPCL and PSTCL is purely technical in nature, their performance is vital for the development of the state as it is looking after the main pillar of infrastructure i.e power.