BATHINDA: Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has to pay Rs 446.27 crore to private thermal power plants in Punjab for a period of 10 months (April 1, 2017 to January 31, 2018) for undrawn power (not drawing any electricity). 

As per the power purchase agreements (PPA) made with private plants during the previous SAD-BJP government, PSPCL has to pay to private players even if the electricity is not drawn from these plants. Punjab has three private-owned power plants. The amount is to be recovered from consumers in various categories and rate of recovery is determined by Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission as per the Electricity Act, 2003, and state tariff/MYT, 2014.

The fact came to fore after PSPCL employees’ union convener Gursewak Singh sought information under the RTI Act. 

Apart from this, power generation was costing Rs 4.76 per unit from Bathinda-based Guru Nanak Dev thermal plant (GNDTP) before it was closed on January 1, 2018, if the plant was to run at % load factor. The coal consumption at GNDTP was 0.647 kg per unit (kg/kWh).

While closing all four units of GNDTP, the government had made varied claims of cost of production with Punjab finance minister Manpreet Badal even repeatedly claiming that the electricity produced costed the state over Rs 11per unit from GNDTP. 

The RTI information is based on questions raised by leader of opposition Sukhpal Khaira in the state assembly and replied by state power minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar in the last assembly session. As the opposition had walked out of he session, the answers were not had come into the open.

Gursewak Singh said, “I had received the RTI response only few days ago from the deputy secretary power. With it the false claims of the state government over price of power generation has come to fore and it has also been cleared that hundreds of crores are being paid to private players without even getting electricity and this burden is being borne by the consumers