The Punjab government is plugging away to find a solution to the power crisis. Back in August, it cut Rs 45 billion from its annual development programme to give a Rs 14 per unit subsidy to consumers of less than 300 units. Now it has come up with a CM Punjab Free Solar Panel Scheme, offering to install free of charge solar panels to consumers of 200 units or less, for whom 1100-Watt panels would be provided, while consumers of 100 units would receive 550-Watt panels. The first year of the scheme would benefit 100,000 consumers, compared to the 7.3 million consumers who benefited from the subsidy. It may been pointed out to the CM that subsidizing the consumer actually meant money being paid to the Independent Power Producers in capacity which had been shorn off the Punjab Budget, which meant that roads, schools or hospitals would not be built. It thus made more sense to put that money in solar generation so that the need for the subsidy could be eliminated. If baseline consumers could convert to solar power, the federal government would be relieved of the subsidy it is paying for them. It is assumed that the government will be picking up the cost of the green meter, which even baseline consumers will prefer, as the Scheme does not specify who is to pick up the cost.
There will be an effort to avoid fraud, by linking the scheme to the consumer’s ID card, and the kit to be provided will not generate more power than is already used. However, the inventiveness of people’s minds is unlimited, and there will doubtless be frauds. Then there is the case of those consumers who may not be able to apply for the scheme, because while they consume units below the threshold, the cumulative bill of several consumers is above it.
However, the Punjab government is showing a commendable commitment to solar power, it needs to beware that storage is presently inefficient, which means that consumers remain WAPDA consumers as well, but that is not permanent. When consumers start going entirely off the grid, the government has nothing to use for advance taxes. In fact, overusing the monthly power bill as a tool incentivizes going off-grid. Another major blow would be if Punjab government offices, like schools, hospitals and police stations, if solarized, would reduce the government’s burden considerably. The distribution companies would go bankrupt, but they would be paying the price of falling behind the technological curve.
