No move to dismantle thermal plant for now: Govt
Jangveer Singh & Umesh Dewan
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh/Patiala, August 26
Senior functionaries of the Punjab Government today said no discussions were held at any level pertaining to the proposed closure of the 440-MW Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant (GNDTP) at Bathinda. The denial comes a day after the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) authorities aired the same views.

Punjab Chief Secretary SC Agarwal denied the reports that there was any proposal for the closure of the thermal plant. "What all I can say is that two units of the GNDTP, Bathinda, had already been renovated and the work to renovate the third unit is already in progress," he said.

Officials attached to Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal also claimed that the latter had only called for preventive action to stop pollution being caused by the plant and never advocated its immediate shutdown.

Notably, the Deputy CM is recently reported to have said that the 37-year-old plant would be shut down as it had outlived its utility and was causing pollution. The citizens had complained that eye and respiratory diseases were on the rise due to high fly ash content in the atmosphere.

Sources said closure of the Bathinda plant was a possibility, which was six to seven years away and had never been formally discussed by the government. They said the possibility was likely to be exercised only when new plants started functioning in the state, following which an obsolete plant in the middle of the town could be shifted.

They said the Deputy CM had earlier only called for immediate preventive action, including temporary suspension of generation, to deal with the problem of pollution. They said complete shutting down of the plant could not be considered at present as the state was short of power and needed every single unit at its disposal.

The officials said suspended particulate matter (SPM) of Unit-IV of the plant was higher than norms because its electrostatic precipitators were very old.

Clearing the air on the issue, Secretary, Power, Anirudh Tiwari, said there was no plan to shut down the thermal plant. The third unit is being renovated and the PSPCL has already chalked out the renovation plan for the fourth unit.

Superintending Engineer, Mechanical, Bathinda, RK Jindal said, "Earlier, there were mechanical precipitators but in 1987-88, electrostatic precipitators were installed in all the four units of the thermal plant to bring down the pollution level."

Jindal said in 2005, the renovation and maintenance of the GNDTP was initiated. The authorities handling the operations of the thermal plants said they were monitoring the pollution levels of the GNDTP online to ensure that the pollution remained well within the prescribed limits.

Villagers contribute to pay power bill of school
Gurdeep Singh Mann/TNS

Fatehgarh Sahib, August 26
Residents of Mugalmajra village in Fatehgarh Sahib are going door-to-door these days to collect money for paying the electricity bill of the village government school. Power supply of the primary school was snapped few days ago after a bill of over Rs 8,000 was not paid.

Village sarpanch, teachers and residents are pleading before the power com officials to resume electricity, but to no avail. The power supply remained erratic for many days and finally got disconnected by the officials.

“The villagers had demanded that the power should be supplied till the money was collected, but the supply got disconnected. Though we got it connected with help of senior power com officials for few days, but it was snapped again,” said village sarpanch Karnail Singh.

“Now we are moving door-to-door to collect Rs 8,000 to pay the bill. We have urged some neighbours to make some alternate arrangement to keep the school fans on,” he said. There are four fans installed in different classrooms of the school, which also has a submersible pump. There are around 60 students in the school. The school also has an anganwari and elementary school.

The sarpanch claimed that there were hardly any funds with the village panchayat to pay for the electricity bills of the school. “The panchayat earns mere Rs 2.5 lakhs in a year by giving land on lease and the state government does not release funds for such payments,” he maintained.

The school authorities, however, rued that the power bills shot up in two months during January and February when some labourers were told to stay on the school premises by the village panchayat.