Why electricity is costly in Punjab
When other states are acquiring power plants from the Tatas, Adanis & Essar, Punjab’s reliance on the private sector costs consumers Rs 1,300 crore every year for unutilised power alone.
ONE of the primary reasons for the high cost of electricity in Punjab is the lopsided policy of totally relying on the private sector for power generation capacity addition. Punjab is the only exception in the country which has ignored the state sector and built all three supercritical thermal plants under the private sector in recent years. Further, the PSPCL has to pay fixed charges to the private thermal plants even for power not utilised and this amount is recovered from the consumers as a part of electricity tariff announced by the regulator. Now, the question is if the problem of high power cost be solved at this stage. The answer is yes, if the required policy corrections are made. The closure of state-run thermal plants without any alternative plan is prone to exploitation by the private sector. The need of hour is to take short- and long-term corrective steps.
No technology upgradation
The generation wing of PSEB (now PSPCL) is credited with the commissioning of GNDTP at Bathinda a year before NTPC was established in 1975, but now, it is passing through its lowest ebb. PSPCL failed to match with the technology upgradation and opted to renovate the old technology based thermal plant at Bathinda at a cost of Rs 750 crore which has led to present state of affairs. Had the PSPCL opted for setting up of supercritical technology based units, the situation would have been different. Now as per the multiyear tariff order, the PSPCL has decided to close GNDTP, Bathinda, and two units of GGSSTP, Ropar, due to high electricity generation cost compared to that of supercritical thermal plants of the private sector in the state. r
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