The Congress government has failed to clear its bill for each of the fiscal years that it has been in power; engineers say using PSPCL as a tool for political freebies will ultimately end up hurting Punjab’s consumers

The power subsidy bill for the new Punjab government will be over four times the amount that the previous SAD-BJP regime had kept unpaid. (

Patiala Freebies, being given away ahead of Punjab’s assembly elections to the power sector, will saddle the next government with a bill of nearly ?10,000, data shows. For the remaining three months and a few days of this fiscal itself, the state government has to pay the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) ?13,000 crore, an uphill task for the cash-strapped regime.

Since assuming power in 2017, the Congress government has also defaulted on paying subsidy dues in every fiscal. The previous SAD-BJP regime had left arrears of ?2,342 crore for it, this government has now allowed this burden to ballon to almost ?10,000 crore.

For PSPCL, this non-payment of dues in lieu of subsidies clubbed with the recent poll sops, has dried up its coffers; the utility is in acute financial stress. The corporation has not even received ?2,023 crore in lieu of writing off arrears of defaulting 2 KW consumers.

With chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s announcement of further sops, the subsidy bill for the present fiscal has touched ?20,016 crore. The government, so far, has paid only ?7,080 crore. If the PSPCL makes adjustments of ?2,315 crore in lieu of electricity duty and other payments to be made to the Punjab government, even then the subsidy default stands at ?6,000 crore till December 15; the revised balance amount, then, to be paid in three-and-a-half months is ?10,025.

The Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC), in its tariff order for the current financial year, worked out a total subsidy of ?17,796 crore, including the arrears of the previous year.

In its annual revenue requirement filing for next financial year, the PSPCL has revised the current subsidy to ?12,245 crore. It has added five month additional subsidies announced by the Punjab government for more concessions to domestic and industrial consumers from November 1, this year.

“The total amount payable to PSPCL this fiscal is about ?13,500 crore, which as per government track record, is not possible at all. Subsidies must be subject to checks and balances or timely payments have to be ensured, as per PSERC orders. Using PSPCL for political freebies will dent it financially, and consumers will suffer,” said VK Gupta, spokesman, All-India Power Engineers Corporation.

He added that for the next fiscal, the PSPCL has sought a subsidy of ?13,929 crore based on the present tariff order. Going by this trend, this was likely to touch ?20,000 crore, which is almost 15% of total budget of Punjab.

Punjab finance secretary KAP Sinha could not be contacted for comments; but, sources in the PSPCL said every effort was being made to ensure that the government cleared its subsidy bill.