With polls round the corner, the Punjab government has announced a bonanza for the power consumers at the cost of Powercom. There is nothing wrong with the various power-related welfare schemes announced by the government for the consumers but it must ensure the timely payment to save PSPCL, despite its commitment for bearing the expenditure, said V K Gupta spokesperson All India Power Engineers Federation.

Practically Punjab State Power Corporation Limited will have to bear the brunt of this largesse. The Punjab government has always defaulted on payment of subsidies and it has never paid full subsidy during the last five years. The arrears of subsidy is always added to the subsidy of next financial year by the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC).

The Punjab government has now reduced the tariff by Rs. 3 for all the domestic consumers with a load up to 7 KW. PSPCL will have to get the approval of PSERC for implementing this decision as per the electricity act 2003. There are 71 lakhs domestic consumers in Punjab.

The number of consumers with a load up to 7 KW is 67.92 lakhs comprising 41.28 lakhs in urban areas and 26.64 lacs in rural areas. The number of SC/ST/BPL consumers already getting 200 units of free power is 21 lakhs. The annual burden of the 47 lakh consumers who have been given a reduced tariff will be 3316 crores. The average consumption by each consumer is 200 units per month.

The burden in the current financial year will be around Rs. 1380 crores. With the reduced tariff, domestic power consumption may increase.

In addition to this, the government has waived off the arrears of consumers with a load of 2KW amounting to more than Rs.1500 crores. The government has also reduced the fixed charges of 35000 medium supply industry consumers amounting to Rs. 150 crores.

PSERC has fixed a subsidy amount payable by the Punjab government to PSPCL at Rs. Rs 17, 796 crores including arrears of last year. The annual subsidy bill for the financial year 2021-22 is Rs. 10628 crores.
Punjab government has paid Rs. 7511 crores till date to PSPCL and the remaining subsidy amount to be paid in the current financial year is Rs.10970 crores. The total amount payable by the Punjab government to PSPCL in the next five months on account of the new welfare scheme and pending subsidy will be around Rs.14000 crores. The monthly installment comes out to be Rs. 2800 crores.

The Punjab government has proposed to bring out legislation in upcoming assembly session to renegotiate the power purchase agreements with private thermal generators of Rajpura and Talwandi Sabo.PSPCL has already issued a notice of termination to the GVK Goindwal Sahib (2x270 MW) Power Purchase Agreement.

Punjab government has claimed that with these measures cheap power will be available to the consumers. The renegotiation of power purchase agreements and termination notices is a long drawn process.

There cannot be any immediate relief to the consumers in this financial year. It seems that the purpose of the bill is to get maximum political mileage out of passing the bill in the assembly.