GIDDERBAHA PROJECT
Engineers question MoU on power generation
Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 18
The Gidderbaha Assembly segment, represented by former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal has been in the news for many reasons. There is now one more reason that seeks to focus the government’s attention on Gidderbaha. The government’s own staff comprising electricity engineers have questioned the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the state and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) for the 2,640 MW Gidderbaha project and sought the Chief Minister’s intervention in the matter.

The argument put forth by the Punjab State Electricity Engineers’ Association is that the state has a direct control over only 52 per cent of power generated in Punjab. The Punjab government generates 3,620 MW out of the total generation of 6,900 MW and if the Gidderbaha Thermal Project is commissioned by the NTPC, the state’s own power generation share will be reduced to only 19 per cent.

Besides the MoU with the NTPC, Punjab has already allotted power-generation work to the tune of 6,510 MW to private companies and another 2,000 MW will soon be outsourced, according to highly placed sources in the state government. The SAD-BJP government has made a commitment to make Punjab power surplus over the next few years, but the opposition from the engineers’ association is that this will reduce government control and also raise the cost of power to the end user.

To keep the cost of power under control and pass on the benefit of low cost of production to the consumer, the engineers feel that it is necessary to retain maximum generation with the government itself. Only government control can lead to what they call “optimum grid operation and achieve economic load dispatch”.

They have accused the state of passing on the interest of the people to private companies, saying that all other states that are expanding their power- generation capacities are doing most of the work themselves. Maharasthra, they point out, has planned an expansion of 7,800 MW, Andhra Pradesh over 11,000 MW, Rajasthan over 8,000 MW, Haryana will generate an additional 1,780 MW, Gujarat another 1,700 MW and Karnataka will have an additional power generation of 5,900 MW, but, on the other hand, Punjab is not keeping any of the additional power it is adding, in its own hand.

Further questioning the logic of handing over the project to the NTPC when the Punjab Finance Corporation (PFC) was funding up to 90 per cent of the project, the engineers have said that there was no logic in handing over the project to an agency outside the state.

The logic in signing an MoU has also been questioned saying that the NTPC had still not resolved the issue of allocation of 1,500 MW power allocated to Punjab out of the 4,000 MW Lara pithead thermal station in Chhattisgarh.

This has caused a set back to the Punjab government as without settling the old issue, Punjab has surrendered its claim on this 1,500 MW, which in money terms means that it will cost the government an additional liability of Rs 450 crore per year for the next 25 years (projected life of the project).