Pvt thermal plant lightens farmers’ lives
Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Gulabewala (Muktsar), July 19
The wizened face of 81-year-old Kashmir Singh suddenly lights up when conversation veers to the mini thermal plant set up by a private sector firm just outside this village. He, like other village residents, has reason to cheer as the plant, which runs on agricultural waste, has brought about noticeable prosperity to this district’s farmers who had been plagued by perennial waterlogging, which in turn led to many of them ending their lives after they became deeply mired in debt.

The 6-megawatt Malwa power plant, the first of its kind in Punjab, spread over 30 acres near the village on the Muktsar-Guru Harsahai road, is proving to be a boon for the villagers as it depends on agricultural waste products supplied by the farmers for which they are paid well. Earlier, the same waste products were destroyed, but now they have come in handy for residents of nearly 200 villages in this district.

The nearly 1,60,000 units of electricity produced by the plant every day is purchased by the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) for transmission to other areas.

Say Kashmir: “Farmers in the area were a hapless lot due to waterlogging of vast tracts of their land and were caught in a huge debt trap till they saw a ray of hope in the thermal plant. The plant not only contributes in easing the power crisis in the state, but also provides additional income to farmers for their agricultural waste. Apart from this the plant also provides jobs to residents of the area with nearly 250 of them directly or indirectly employed by the plant itself.”

An expert on thermal plant design opined “such mini thermal plants are the order of the day as transmission losses are almost negligible in their case. Reduction in transmission supply automatically reduces losses.”

The plant requires 2,500 quintals of farm waste products daily. This waste is processed in large boilers and later used to produce steam, which is finally converted into electrical energy. Though Punjab’s average energy requirement is nearly 11,000 MW PSEB manages to produce only half this amount.

Thermal energy experts feel if more such mini plants are set up in the private sector Punjab’s power demand can be met from within the state alone.