Chandigarh: Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on Sunday blamed the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party govt’s “incompetence, mismanagement and corruption” for the “unprecedented power crisis” in the state.During the seventh session of his ‘Warring with Warriors’ interaction, the Ludhiana MP alleged that the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) had been turned into a “milking cow” by a “consortium of the corrupt” and claimed that the people, farmers, students and industry had faced power cuts lasting 12-18 hours.“This is the result of a series of errors that led to a historical power outage in Punjab,” Warring said, adding, “It was like a comedy of errors under a comic regime, where everything has been reduced to a joke.”He questioned the appointment of an “inexperienced non-technocrat bureaucrat” as PSPCL chairperson, alleging the official attended the office for only 25-30 days during his 300-day tenure while simultaneously holding four other posts.Warring also alleged that PSPCL remained without a director (generation) for about six months and accused the Mann govt of subsequently relaxing eligibility criteria to appoint another person.He claimed the corporation failed to undertake advance power planning and alleged that electricity, earlier purchased at Rs 4-5 per unit, was now being bought from private traders at Rs 8.10 per unit.Warring further alleged a Rs 7,000-crore shortfall in govt subsidy payments to the PSPCL. He claimed that the corporation had to seek a Rs 10,000-crore loan through a private broker, allegedly paying Rs 150 crore as commission.Rejecting the chief minister’s claim that a coal shortage caused the crisis, Warring attributed the shortfall to reduced generation at the Lehra Mohabbat and Ropar thermal plants and the incomplete restoration of the UBDC hydropower project.
