Power crisis dominates Punjab House proceedings
Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 10
The power crisis in Punjab dominated the proceedings of the (Punjab) Vidhan Sabha today with the Congress taking on the ruling SAD-BJP alliance for “not doing enough” to ensure adequate supply to farmers and domestic consumers in the state.

Also, both Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Leader of the Opposition, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, agreed only on one point — to term the outages as a “natural calamity” and seek more power from the central pool.

An indication of the things to come was apparent from the very beginning when the entire Congress Legislative Party members walked into the House wearing black cloaks and carrying hand fans. The Congress legislators remained calm during the question hour, only to get charged up when Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon disallowed an adjournment motion moved by Congress’ Lal Singh.

As suggested by the Speaker, Lal Singh was the first to speak during the zero hour. But he expressed his anguish over the former’s refusal to allow a debate over power crisis. Post him, Bhattal took on the government for what she called as a “failure to plan and provide power” to farmers and other consumers in Punjab. She asked the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues to get air conditioners in their houses disconnected and to use candles till the time they were able to supply power to the residents.

Adding humour to the situation, she even presented a bunch of hand fans to Badal “to be used while the air conditioners were disconnected”.

At this, Badal got up and explained various measures that had been taken to ensure adequate power supply to consumers in the state. He said the power situation was dismal across the country. The state, said he, had kept aside Rs 3,000 crore to purchase power but no state had spare electricity to be sold. He claimed the power situation in Punjab was much better than the neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Badal claimed that he had got an additional 275 MW of power from the central pool for paddy earlier and another 78 MW yesterday. He said Punjab produced 6,800 MW of power against the requirement of 7,870 MW. In order to make up for the shortfall, the Chief Minister said, the government had tied up with power-surplus states but due to unusually high demand these states too backed out. He said the four plants of Goindwal Sahib, Bathinda, Rajpura and Giddarbaha would become operational over the next few years and make Punjab self sufficient in power. He disclosed that the Shahpur Kandi power project had also been approved. Unsatisfied by the explanation, the Congress MLAs entered into a heated exchange of words with those of the SAD.