Amid an all-time high demand for power, Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd (PSPCL) managed to supply only around 12,500MW daily against a demand of 15,500MW

Amid an all-time high demand for power, Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd (PSPCL) managed to supply only around 12,500MW daily against a demand of 15,500MW. The PSPCL is now relying on monsoon as rains will decrease the demand by about 3,000MW and the generation from hydropower stations will also go up.

The shortfall is mainly due to lesser generation by hydropower stations, including Bhakra Beas Management Board, and 1,980MW Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL) going out of operations.

In order to bridge the gap between demand and supply, the PSPCL was constrained to impose power regulatory measures on industrial as well other consumers. The corporation is enforcing outages from 2 to 6 hours across the state, especially in rural belts. Besides, the industry is on forced shutdown for three days a week till July 14.

Industrial bodies held protests against the PSPCL across Punjab on Saturday, after which the corporation came out with some relaxations. PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director A Venu Prasad said keeping in view the persistent demand of the industrial consumers, power regulatory measures on general category LS consumers having sanctioned contract demand up to 100KVA have been relaxed with effect from July 11.

Industrial consumers have now been allowed to operate up to 100KVA of load, while the earlier exemption limit was only up to 50KVA.

However, industrialists termed the relaxation as insufficient. “There is need to order probe why such lopsided arrangements were made. You can’t run industry short of capacity as it leads to higher input costs and ends up in losses,” said Yogesh Kumar, an industrialist from Patiala.

The PSPCL has arranged to purchase 752MW extra power at a rate of ?3.08 per unit for July 11.