Govt to review power purchase agreements with pvt players

Rajmeet Singh

The Congress government will review the power purchase agreements between the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and private players involved in electricity generation in the state.

“These agreements, signed during the tenure of the previous government, are against the state’s interests. These will be reworked to Punjab’s advantage. We are also revisiting the power policy,” says Power and Irrigation Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh.

In the run-up to the elections, the Congress had accused the PSPCL of extending undue benefits to the tune of Rs 7,500 crore to private players, allowing them to raise their variable costs arbitrarily, thus making power expensive for the consumers.

“Economic sense says that privatisation leads to competitiveness, which the existing agreements do not encourage,” he says. According to Rana Gurjeet, the incentives and facilities provided to the industry should eventually benefit the state.

“We can no longer afford to shut down state-run power plants so that private companies earn profits. This practice will be stopped,” he asserts.

His top priority will be providing affordable, round-the-clock power for domestic, commercial and industrial consumers, besides probing alleged bungling in the allotment of tubewell connections.

On how he will fulfil the poll promise of supplying power at Rs 5 per unit, Rana Gurjeet says he has asked for a detailed presentation on the matter tomorrow. The PSPCL has sought a 20 per cent hike in the power tariff for 2017-18, citing a total revenue deficit of Rs 11,575 crore (including Rs 5,998 crore carried forward from the previous years).

Claiming that there is no transparency in electricity billing, he says, “There are hundreds of complaints about inflated bills. The entire model is being reworked.”

According to him, the losses also need to be curbed to make the power transmission and distribution system efficient.

The minister says many industrial units shifted from the state in the past 10 years because of the flawed power tariff policy of the then SAD-BJP government. “There will be a five-year ceiling on the increase in tariff for the industrial sector. A meeting with the Secretary (Power) and the PSPCL Chairman-cum-Managing Director has been called to discuss the issue,” he adds.

No compromise on SYL

Rana Gurjeet says his party’s stand on the SYL issue is “crystal clear”. “We resigned en masse in protest against the Supreme Court verdict,” he recalls, adding that, “I have called Advocate General Atul Nanda to discuss the issue and frame a strategy to present the state’s case emphatically during the hearing in the apex court on March 28.”

The minister says a non-riparian state does not have any right over the waters of the rivers not flowing through it. “And here we are being forced to do what goes against the principle of natural justice. When we are not given a share from the Yamuna waters, why should we share the Sutlej waters, which are exclusively ours?” he asks.