Power Struggle: Discom PPAs go for a toss, now Punjab set to cancel a few
Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has asked the state’s electricity distribution company (discom) – Punjab State Power Corporation (PSPCL) – to reexamine all power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed by the former SAD-BJP government with various private power plants, and revise or cancel the contracts that are ‘one-sided” and ‘not beneficial to the state’. In a statement released on Wednesday evening, the chief minister’s office said that the discom had been directed to revoke the PPA with Vedanta’s subsidiary Talwandi Sabo Power (TSPL), which runs the 1,980 mega-watt (MW) station in the state.
The Talwandi Sabo plant is the largest single source of power in Punjab, and after all the units of the station broke down earlier in the month, the state government had to impose restrictions of the industrial consumers, permitting them to draw only 50% of power capacity allocated to them for a few days. Stating that the plant “miserably failed to perform in the current paddy season”, the government notice said that the PPAs with private power stations “were established basically to meet the power demands of the State especially during paddy sowing and summer season”.
