Ahead of Punjab Assembly polls, spurt in power thefts

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, December 20

Power theft in the election-bound Punjab has gone up this year as compared to the previous year as per the data of 12 divisions where losses have been over 50 per cent.

Powercom employees threaten mass leave

• Punjab may face a blackout as the PSPCL and PSTCL employees have threatened to proceed on mass casual leave from December 23
• The decision was taken by PSPCL and PSTCL employee unions and associations during a meeting in Patiala
• They criticised “deliberate” attempts by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited management to delay the implementation of the new pay scales.

The state has already seen Rs 1,200-crore power theft per annum and the amount is expected to increase further.

“Local MLAs allow this loot to their chosen few who propagate that if the incumbent MLAs are re-elected there would be no raids for next five years as well,” said senior field officials. “You conduct a raid and face wrath of local politicians, who see such raids against their vote banks. Recently, an MLA threatened our official for raids in some villages, but no action was taken,” they alleged.

The data collected from the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) suggested that in the Tarn Taran circle, Bhikhiwind, Patti and city divisions had recorded losses of 81.54 per cent, 74.66 per cent, 51.70 per cent, respectively, whereas the figures were 79.14 per cent, 67.36 per cent and 45.64 per cent, respectively, last year.

Similarly, in the Amritsar suburban circle, three divisions of West, Ajnala, and Sub-urban had losses of 62.76 per cent, 64.03 per cent and 49.10 per cent, respectively, against the last year’s figures of 55.32, 55.37 and 44.34 per cent, respectively.

As per the data collected by The Tribune, there are nine feeders in the Border zone where losses were more than 90 per cent while at 34 feeders, the losses were between 80 to 90 per cent.

Even the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission in its tariff order, dated November 30, for the 2022-23 financial year, said: “The PSPCL has failed to bring down losses to the desired level despite huge capital investments allowed by the commission”.

In Sangrur district, Patran and Lehragaga had losses of 31.55 per cent and 54.20 per cent, respectively, while in Malout it was 45.19.

“Had power theft been controlled, the tariff could have been brought down by 30 paise per unit every year,” VK Gupta, spokesman, All India Power Engineers’ Federation.

PSPCL CMD A Venu Prasad confirmed that the power theft losses had shot up marginally due to Covid-19, as the overall consumption had come down. “However, we are working on it and ensuring steps to check the menace,” he said.