Paddy season a month away, power cuts back in Punjab

Tribune News Service

Aman Sood
Patiala, April 13

Amid the limited coal supply, high purchase prices and limited power available in the power exchange, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) is imposing power cuts of one to five hours in villages and one or two hours in cities.

While the PSPCL claims that the “power interruptions are for a limited period” due to “high demand at night hours”, power experts warn of long cuts in the coming four months.

Despite the paddy season almost over a month away, Patiala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Sangrur, Ferozepur and Amritsar cities faced power cuts from Tuesday night till Wednesday afternoon. Interestingly, the PSPCL has been claiming to have sufficient power to meet the demand in the paddy season.

Earlier this month, state Power Minister Harbhajan Singh had informed that the PSPCL had made additional arrangements to cater to the peak demand in the coming paddy season. However, a former chief engineer of the PSPCL said the industry was worried about the pre-paddy season too.

The daily coal requirement of all five thermal plants is around 75 metric tonnes while operating at the plant load factor of over 85 per cent. Despite running at reduced capacity, the thermal plants in Punjab are not even getting half the daily coal requirement.

According to PSPCL officials, a total 1,597 lakh units of power was supplied in the state on April 12 in comparison to 1,272 lakh units last year. “Only 125 lakh units were purchased during night,” said an official.

“On Tuesday night, there was disturbance in supply due to outage. Exchange rates are very high at Rs 12 and still ample power is not available,” he said.

A senior PSPCL official confirmed that Punjab was power-surplus during day but “a little deficient” at night due to which they had to impose power cuts.

A former senior official said, “The paddy season is yet to start and the demand will touch around 15,000 MW. At present, it is hovering between 8,000 MW and 9,500 MW and still power cuts are imposed.”

Units running at thermal plants

• Four out of four functioning at Lehra Mohabbat
• Three out of four at Ropar as one unit is under annual maintenance
• Two out of two at Nabha thermal plant, Rajpura
• Two out of three at Talwandi Sabo while one unit will start by Thursday morning
• None out of two at GVK, Goindwal Sahib

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