HISAR THERMAL PLANT
Under pressure to ignore lapses: Engineers
Bhanu P Lohumi
Tribune News Service

Karnal, August 1
The Haryana Power Engineers Association yesterday expressed serious concern at the “poor” execution of the Hisar Thermal Plant by the contractor and alleged that “engineers are being pressurised to ignore lapses on the part of the contractor.”

An executive committee meeting of the association, was held under the chairmanship of Padamjit Singh, chairman, All- India Power Engineers Federation, here yesterday.

It observed that despite the best efforts of thermal engineers and technicians, the quality control of 2X600 mw Hisar Thermal plant was suffering with the HPGCL management ignoring their observations. This had resulted in poor execution of works. RS Dahiya, president of the association, alleged that the contractor, EPC, was not meeting contractual obligations regarding the commercial operation in the given time- frame and engineers were being pressurised to ignore lapses.

The meeting, also attended by Raj Kumar Jangra and Hardeep Sangwan, president and general secretary of HPGCL Engineers, opposed the move of the state government to privatise distribution of power in the industrial towns of Gurgaon and Panipat.

“These towns have the highest revenue earnings in the state and line losses are low as compared to other circles.

“As such there is no basis for introducing the franchise system in the state,” the meeting observed.

The engineers condemned the “delaying” tactics of Discoms in finalising its restructuring. The meeting expressed resentment over the delay in rectifying the anomalies in pay scales and upgrading the scales of assistant engineers.