Retired Punjab power engineers blame private plants for crisis

PSPCL can buy private thermal plants in Punjab’s Rajpura, Mansa and Goindwal Sahib by monetising its assets, says retired power engineers’ forum

Accusing the successive governments in Punjab of privatising the power generation sector, a forum of retired Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) engineers on Wednesday sought to reverse the policy and asked the utility to take electricity generation under its direct control.

Successive governments in Punjab privatised the power generation sector, says retired power engineers’ forum.

“The PSPCL can buy private thermal plants in Punjab by monetising its assets. The land attached with the Bathinda thermal plant which has been closed is worth ₹20,000 crore. Using these funds, the corporation can buy the three thermal plants at Rajpura, Mansa and Goindwal Sahib,” said PSPCL retired deputy chief engineer Bhupinder Singh, who is convener of the forum.

He said cancellation of power purchase agreements (PPAs) with the private power plants would lead to acute power shortage and long-drawn litigations. “There is no provision of cancellation of the PPAs,” Singh said.

Due to insufficient generation on its own, the PSPCL was dependent on outside sources to supply power to consumers as the state-run thermal plants contribute merely 3% of the total energy, the lowest in the country, he added.