PSPCL sets motion for privatization under the command of care taker CMD
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ April 19,2025
“In the absence of regular technical CMD of Punjab State Power corporation Ltd.(PSPCL) , is under pressure to privatise the two divisions in each of five zones as suggested by the private consultant working with Punjab Development Corporation” said an office bearers of PSEB Engineer’s Association.
The post of regular CMD is vacant since February 6,2025 after the term of Baldev Singh Sra ended. The government has given the charge of CMD to Ajoy Kumar Sinha, IAS , principal secretary , Power
PSPCL authorities have asked officers of Kharar and Lalru divisions to submit the desired data so that the proposal to handover the work to two divisions can be discussed by director Distribution on Monday. In the South zone Lalru and Kharar divisions have been identified for the start of a pilot project for the start of privatisation process.
The officers of these two divisions have been asked to furnish the list of defaulters with pending amounts up to 50 thousands and 1 lakh respectively so that the pending amount is recovered in four months from May to August. The consultant has also sought the final list of 264 priority feeders that need to be upgraded along with present manpower available .List of feeders with power cut of more than one hour have also been sought.
With the start of privatisation in distribution the recruitment of line man and Assistant line man will be hampered. The PSPCL is already struggling to attend faults and consumer grievances due to staff shortage in sub- divisions. The data available with the PSPCL shows that against the total 13390 and 22769 sanctioned posts of linemen and assistant linemen, the department has just 5072 and 6790 regular field staff. In case of Junior engineers the sanctioned posts are 3482 and actually posted are 2110.The vacancies in these three cadres are 25669.
It may be mentioned that Punjab government constituted Punjab Development Commission in September 2023 as an independent “action based think tank “ to support the development needs of state. A private consultant from Boston Consulting Group , a member PDC since November 2023 is dictating PSPCL to start the process of privatisation as a pilot project .
“PSPCL sets motion for privatization under the command of care taker CMD as the powercom has taken the first step in the name of updating the consumer services. They will adopt urban divisions of Bathinda, Ludhiana etc for justifying their step ” said an engineer on the condition of anonymity
Davinder Singh Patron, JEs Council said that it is nothing short of initiation of privatization of the distribution sector. Undoubtedly, the experiment is being done in a small segment. We all should strongly oppose it.
When contacted Inderpal Singh, Director Distribution, PSPCL , he said ” we are just trying to adopt mechanism for providing better services to the consumers with manpower in hand. We are studying, accessing the various consumer friendly models adopted by other Discoms for providing better consumer services, nothing else.”
