The biggest promise the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made to Punjab in 2022 and later fulfilled is now pushing Punjab towards a dark age, as the power freebies have delivered a double whammy for the debt-ridden Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL).
The promise itself is fake. the shortage of coal has prompted the state government to announce longer power cuts While the exchequer and the power grids were experiencing higher demand for power. Meanwhile, Punjab Power Minister Tarunpreet Sondh has blamed the Union Government for the power shortage in the state. “Over the past two to three days, I received numerous calls from industrial associations and farmer unions. Even then, unexpected technical faults occurred at the Talwandi Sabo and NPL Rajpura thermal plants. “A remarkable trend was observed this September. Whether one attributes it to El Nino or a delayed monsoon, this is a historic and remarkable milestone.
Because the Punjab government is in no position to pay PSPCL the subsidy against this facility, “The 300-unit free electricity scheme has completely crumbled. If any consumer uses even one unit above the fixed 300 units a month, they have to pay the entire electricity bill with no relief,” Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal said. The state’s current power demand is about 15,900-16,000 MW. Own generation is only 4,200-4,900 MW; the rest, about 10,800-11,500 MW, is drawn from the northern grid. The state government claims it had purchased power to meet the demand, but there was a peak-hour gap of 1,500-2,000 MW, managed through cuts. As I explained in my press conference three days ago, some of the strain came from coal supply cuts by Coal India under the Central Government, along with a shortfall of nearly 1,000 MW from our entitled share in the central power pool. In previous years, power demand during September typically hovered around 13,100 MW. This year, peak demand surged to 16,600 MW – an unprecedented rise of 3,500 MW in a single month. Despite that sudden extra load of 3,500 MW, the PSPCL department navigated the challenge and overcame it.
State Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said by providing free power to all domestic consumers, the AAP government was in fact overburdening taxpayers. He said that his party supports free power to the needy but “not at the cost of other consumers”. Power was also scarce in the open private market, even though we had kept Rs 2,000 crore reserved to buy electricity if needed,” Sondh said while informing that the “state has already stocked sufficient coal from its own Pachhwara mines for the state’s thermal units. That is a major achievement for the Punjab Government,” he said.
Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal have always defended the guarantee. The scheme is given without bias, without discrimination. “300 units of free electricity per month are being provided to domestic consumers, and around 90% of households are receiving zero electricity bills.
As long as AAP is in power, people will keep getting free power and 24×7 supply,” Bhagwant Mann said.
A blackout threat looms over Punjab based on the timeline flagged by Power Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sondh. Private thermal plants in the state have only about two days of coal left. If fresh supplies do not arrive in the next day or two, generation at these plants will stop.
