State reels under power cuts
Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

Patiala, December 12
The claim of the PSEB to supply round-the-clock electricity during summers notwithstanding, the state is reeling under long scheduled and unscheduled power cuts ranging between four and six hours daily.

The meltdown-hit Punjab industry has suffered another blow with the PSEB increasing the duration of the power weekly off from 24 to 34 hours for thousands of industrial units falling in group II from yesterday.

Even urban areas are subjected to daily cuts of four to six hours. It is perhaps for the first time when such long power cuts are haunting residents in winters.

Board officials are allegedly trying to pass the buck and are attributing the bad power situation to one or the other factors. “We have to return from 100 to 100 lakh units of power daily to states like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand under the banking system or for the power taken from these states during summers,” said an official.

Sources in the PSEB, however, revealed the board which, was suffering from a severe power crunch, was resorting to “resale” of electricity to other needy states at a higher price after drawing it from the Central grid. The board, sources said, was drawing power from the Central grid at the rate ranging from Rs 2.75 paise per unit to Rs 3 per unit and was selling it to other states at a whopping price of Rs 7-8 per unit.

“Power cuts are affecting our life in a worst manner. Not only this, our kids are suffering from power cuts as they have to reschedule their day according to power outages,” laments Dr Bhupinder Singh, a resident of Patiala.

Former chairperson of the Punjab Social Welfare Board Harsimrat Kaur said power cuts have virtually derailed life of people in rural as well as in urban areas of Punjab.