Jalandhar, February 21
Power cuts will be not be a problem after March 1 since the PSEB has made arrangements under the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (ARDRP) that will ensure that that the load shedding will as thing of the past.

K.D. Chaudhary, member, distribution of the board, said the state has made elaborate arrangements to tide over the power crises. Although we have initiated steps to tackle the power crises in the state, the best alternative has been provided by the Centre under ARDRP which envisages an expenditure of over Rs 50,0000 crore to improve the power generation and distribution infrastructure across the nation, he added.

He said the new scheme was aimed at consolidating the existing network besides creating facilities that would augment the present delivery systems.

Speaking in context with Punjab, he said the present transmission losses were over 20 per cent that were on the lower side as compared to other electricity boards in the country. Steps were being afoot to bring them lower under the new scheme, he revealed.

Chaudhary said that the state was returning power to other states under the banking facility. The maximum power was being given to Himachal Pradesh that would be returnable during the summers. This arrangement had been in place for long and was in the interest of the state, he pointed out.

On the utility of CFC bulbs, he said the board was considering providing such bulbs to the consumers in Punjab with such bulbs but the modalities were being worked on, he added.

He also added that the board was working to clear the backlog of the consumers who ha applied for power connections in the agriculture and the industrial sector, he said the connections would be released on a priority basis.

On the statements by her government on making the state a power surplus state, he said that the state was working to fulfill the aspirations of the state and that the needful would be achieved in the projected time. Chaudhary said presently the power shortfall in the state was over 10 per cent as compared to the demand.

CE T.S. Thind and senior officers of the department were present on the occasion. 

Nawanshahr, February 21
Balbir Kumar, a subject expert, has pointed out as many as 14 grammatical, printing and other errors in three sets of the English question papers of the Middle standard examination set by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB).

The examination started today.

Talking to this correspondent, Balbir Kumar that while in set A & B, there are three mistakes each, in set C, three are as many as eight mistakes.

In set C, there are some major mistakes in the very first question relating to comprehension, said the subject expert adding that in the passage some of the words are either missing or grammatically wrong, consequently creating a problem for the students to comprehend the passage. Besides, there is an idiom used in passage - ‘taken to task’. The word ‘task’ is a part of the idiom phrase and its meaning cannot be given separately. But the paper setter has asked the meaning of it in the comprehension question, further pointed out Balbir Kumar.

The errors have created confusion among the students, said the subject expert while urging the authorities concerned to grant grace marks to the students in the subject of English as they should not suffer due to the errors in the question papers.