With just five days left for the expiry of the deadline of May 31 given by the Centre for unbundling of the Punjab state electricity board, pressure is mounting on the state government in view of a recent proposal from the Centre asking all the remaining seven state electricity boards to complete unbundling of the electricity boards within this financial year.

Sources in the state power department told FE here on Tuesday that with the Centre, ?determined not to give further extension to those seven states where the unbundling of state electricity boards has not been completed so for as per the Electricity Act 2003, the state government would have to hasten the process of unbundling of the PSEB?..

Besides, Punjab, the other state electricity boards that have not unbundled due to pressure built by board employees include Tamil Nadu and Kerala who have got extension from Centre till June 9 this year. The remaining four state electricity boards are in Himachal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh that have been given extensions up to May 31 this year to complete the restructuring formalities. The Punjab government has already reappointed a company, Earnest and Young, last year as consultant to submit a report on the restructuring of the PSEB.

The Punjab government has been seeking repeated extensions in the dead line to disband the electricity board on frivolous grounds. The eighth extension was up to May 31 The reason for postponing the unbundling has been the stiff opposition from employees of the PSEB numbering more than 60,000, which no ruling party can afford to displease. The board employees and activists of Bharatiya Kisan Union have been holding rallies in different parts of the state opposing privatisation of the Board.

HS Bedi, president of PSEB engineer?s association told FE that the intentions of the state government behind power reforms process were questionable. ?Breaking PSEB into three divisions (generation, transmission and distribution entities) will not yield efficiency in service and financial improvement in the board unless the political intervention in routine functioning of the board is eliminated.? The assoiation has held the line that ?the government could float a single trading company, which would be engaged into purchase or sale of power and other functions such as transmission, generation and distribution could rest with the board,?

He said that it is possible to retain the board without disturbing the present set up of the PSEB to meet the legal requirements of Electricity Act 2003 .

According to engineers the restructuring of PSEB is a high risk, low return and irreversible process and all the stake holders must be involved in the process. Government would have to take the responsibility of conversion of state Government loans in to equity and taking over the liabilities related to employee’s retirement benefits.

Failure of reform process in different states is attributed mainly to political interferences in day to day working of the state power utilities. The cite example of Delhi and Orissa which they say are the living examples of failures of reform process. However, Gujarat is an example where the reforms have yielded results. 24 hour power supply without any cut during last one year is no mean achievement.