Parkash Singh Badal-a man who turned Punjab into a “Power Full” state
Kanwar Inder Singh/April 27,2023
Power sector has been one of the major contributors towards the development of any state. After years of focused attention, the Power sector in Punjab grew immensely during the rule of former chief minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal.
Punjab’s government owned Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant, Lehra Mohabbat, which has an installed capacity of 920 MW is commissioned in two stages. In stage-I two Units of 210MW each and in stage-II again two Units of 250 MW each were commissioned. Unit-1 & 2 of Stage-I was commissioned on December 29, 1997 and October 16, 1998 respectively while Unit-3 & 4 of Stage-II was commissioned on January 03, 2008 and July 31, 2008 respectively, during the chief ministership of Parkash Singh Badal.
During his ten year stint from 2007-2017 three private power plants of total capacity of 3920 MW were established, commissioned in Punjab. Technical giant L&T established their 1400 MW thermal power plant Nabha Power Limited at Rajpura, Vedanta group’s 1980 MW thermal power plant Talwandi Sabo Power Plant was established at Talwandi in Mansa district and GVK group’s 540 MW thermal power plant was established at Goindwal sahib in Tarn Taran district of Punjab.
Parkash Singh Badal-a man who turned Punjab into a “Power Full” state. Besides these thermal plants, power is added through hydel projects, solar power plants during his tenure. He also dedicated the ‘Single Rooftop Solar Power Plant’ with capacity of 11.5 MW to the state at Dera Baba Jaimal Singh of Radha Soami Sect. in 2016. It was world’s largest single ‘Rooftop” solar power plant at the time of inauguration. Country’s first 2 MW commercial solar power plant at village Awan in Amritsar district was inaugurated in 2009, again during his tenure.
The erstwhile Punjab state electricity board (PSEB) was unbundled into two companies as part of reforms in compliance of Central Electricity Act 2003, in 2010 during the tenure of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. After the restructuring of PSEB, two separate companies, Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd. (Powercom) to manage generation and distribution and another Punjab State Transmission Corporation Ltd. (Transco) to manage transmission functions were formed.
(royalpatiala.in News)
