Aman Sood
Tribune News Service
Patiala, October 19
The popular government schemes to appease the voters ahead of the Vidhan Sabha poll due next year will financially hit Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), which solely depends on payments released by the state in lieu of various welfare schemes and arrears. Experts suggest delay in subsidy release, increase in subsidy bill and waiver of arrears are likely to hit the financial health of the PSPCL.
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Rs 4,500-cr subsidy bill yet to be cleared
At present, the annual subsidy bill is roughly Rs10,600 crore. Recently, we were paid some of the pending subsidy amount while the remaining bill of Rs4,500 crore is yet to be cleared by the government.
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The power corporation reported a profit of Rs 1,446 crore for 2020-21 despite not getting the complete subsidy, including arrears as worked out by the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission. “However, it looks highly unlikely given the new subsidy schemes and expensive power purchase in the past three months,” said PSPCL insiders.
As per the decision of the state government, the PSPCL on October 13 issued an order to waive the defaulting amount of consumers with a connected load of up to 2KW, which amounted to around Rs 1,200 crore. Further, the connections which have been disconnected for non-payment will be reconnected without any additional cost.
“The additional cost to be incurred by the PSPCL to reconnect the disconnected ones are Rs 1,500 per connection, which means between Rs 10 crore and Rs 15 crore more subsidies,” said a senior PSPCL official. The government has also allowed the additional 100 units of free power to the SC/BC/BPL domestic categories, who were already getting 200 units per month. This will involve an additional expenditure of Rs 800 crore. On papers for both these welfare schemes, the government has committed to pay Rs 2,000 crore to the PSPCL. “However, these schemes will have to wait for an approval by the regulator, if the PSPCL has to make any change in the annual tariff plan before it can be implemented in the state,” said PSPCL insiders.
Moreover, with additional schemes announced recently, the subsidy burden is likely to go up further. There are 72 lakh domestic consumers in Punjab. Of these, 53 lakh consumers have connected load up to 2KW. Around 22 lakh consumers with a load of 2KW are already getting free power of 200 units. Of these, 16 lakh are those whose average monthly consumption is less than 200 units per month and the rest 6 lakh have an average consumption of more than 200 units per month.
Insiders in PSPCL further said with the enhancement of free power from 200 to 300 units per month, the consumers with connected load of 2KW using 300 units will increase to 20 lakh and those using more than 300 unit will be 2 lakh. VK Gupta, spokesman, All India Power Engineers Federation, said: “It’s also not clear whether any amount of coal washing charges of about Rs 1,600 crore was paid during the last fiscal.”
Outstanding amount
Rs4,000 cr defaulters
Rs2,000 cr govt depts
Rs1,500 cr consumers
Populist schemes add to PSPCL woes
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