PSEB Engineers' Association blames PSPCL mgmt for power crisis

Engineers of Punjab power utility PSPCL today blamed the policies of the utility's management for the current crisis wherein power demand has exceeded available supply, leading to heavy load shedding.
"The present power crisis is colossal failure of PSPCL management and its lopsided policies," PSEB Engineers' Association president Baldev Singh Sran said in a release issued here.
With the paddy sowing season going on, Punjab has been facing heavy load shedding across all categories of customers, ranging between 5-8 hours per day.
Power utility Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has blamed inadequate coal supplies to private thermal power plants as the reason for lesser power generation to meet increasing power requirements in the wake of "poor" monsoon.

The engineers blamed the PSPCL management of heavily relying on private thermal power plans for raising the state's total thermal power generation.
They demanded that one thermal power plant should have been set up under the state sector.

Taking a dig at private thermal power plants, Singh alleged that these plants, including Goindwal Sahib, Rajpura and Talwandi Sabo with a total installed capacity of 3,920 MW had failed to make arrangements for coal for their own plants.
"Private plants could not produce even 500 MW of power due to one reason or another and the most important being that these private power producers have just failed to make arrangements for coal for their own plants," he alleged.

He said that at least one of these plants, as per experts, should be executed under the state sector to keep a balance between state and private generation for optimum grid operation and better reliability.
He pointed out that Punjab has own captive coal mines at Pachhwara in Jharkhand and Deocha in West Bengal which have adequate quantity of coal to produce electricity for the state's needs.
The association alleged that the higher cost of power generated from private power plants would also burden the consumers of the state in the coming years.