Congress today picked holes in Punjab government's "tall claims" on the power situation in the state saying the outages by PSPCL and low output from electricity generation companies had exposed them.
Underlining that farmers were the most affected due to acute power shortage and deficient monsoon, Punjab Congress president Pratap Singh Bajwa demanded that compensation be paid to them.
The tall claims of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Deputy, Sukhbir Singh Badal about adequate availability of power and about the state being close to becoming a power surplus state stand exposed with the state experiencing acute power shortage, Bajwa said in a statement here.
The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) had announced load shedding on all categories of consumers including farmers, citing poor monsoon and less power generation the very same day a full page advertisement in some newspapers "made tall claims about the state being power surplus", he said.
He further said that the much hyped private thermal power plants in the state had failed to give the desired results.
"The Rajpura thermal plant with total installed capacity of 1400 MW was supplying just 500 MW while the Talwandi Sabo plant had altogether stopped generation at this time of acute crisis. This had cut the supply by 1560 MW," he claimed.
The situation has further worsened in the wake of deficient rainfall, especially on the farm front, he noted.
"The hard working farmers in Punjab have never let the country down even in times of drought. But what has complicated the situation further now is the acute shortage of power for which the state government is responsible," he said
"Power to run tube-wells is just not available. The farmers have to depend on diesel pumping sets to irrigate paddy and other crops which has multiplied the cost of input. The farmers should be compensated for the high cost of input. The Punjab government should either get this relief from the Centre or pay from its own resources," he said.
Bajwa has demanded compensation be paid to farmers at the rate of Rs 5,000 per acre in view of the deficient monsoon.
