Unscheduled power cuts add to people’s woes in state
Baninder Rahi

Chandigarh

With summers being two months away, people across Punjab have already started facing unscheduled power cuts which are causing huge inconvenience to them.

Apathy on the part of the Punjab Electricity Department can be gauged from the fact that the power cuts continued during the election period as well. Be it the Majha, Malwa or Doaba region, they have all suffered the same fate.

In Naya Gaon village of Mohali district, the residents are facing power cuts twice in a day and there is no limit to the duration of cuts. Sarvnoor, a resident of the locality, said, “Usually, there is a power cut around seven or eight o’clock in the morning. If the electricity department has no option but to make power cuts, they must announce the time in advance.”

“Unscheduled power cuts give us a tough time in the morning when people go to offices and students go to the schools.” Ravinder, a resident of Gurdaspur, said, “Every government promises undisrupted power supply before elections. A large chunk of population cannot afford electricity generators and the government should understand this.”

In Malwa region starting from Patiala to Bathinda, the region is reeling under severe power crisis. At present, there are three state-run thermal plants at Ropar (1,260 MW), Lehra Mohabbat (920 MW) and Bathinda (440 MW), generating 2,620 MW of electricity.

K D Chaudhary, chairman and managing director of the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd, denied any such cuts. He said, “There are no such cuts from our side. This might be due to some development work going on in certain areas wherein the concerned offices would be putting power cuts.”

However, with the upcoming plants at Rajpura (1,400 MW), Talwandi Sabo (1,980 MW) and Goindwal (540 MW), the government hopes the power situation would ease by 2013-14.

The 700 MW unit at Rajpura is slated to come up in January 2014 and 270 MW unit at Goindwal Sahib is expected by January 2013