Politics has eclipsed the running of the mini hydel project. adjacent to Terkiana village near here. The mini power project faces closer as the plant has been shut for the past 20 days. The power plant has been adding 10,000 units per day to the state's total power generation Set up by Atlantic Power Private Limited(APPL), a company owned by NRI Avtar Singh Gill, the Punjab energy Development Agencies (PEDA) had temporarily shut the plant down following protests by farmers of nearly 30 villages on January 29. Alleging water logging leading to damage to the crops, farmers under the leadership of local MLA. Amarjit Singh Sahi has a lodged a protest.
He demanded that the plant should not be allowed to discharge water. The MLA has Said he would not allow the company to run the plant at the cost of farmer's crops. Having acapacity to generate 650-KW electricity, the Punjab government had allocated the plant to the company over two years ago to clean the polluted Kali Bein. Senior officers from the PEDA had made it clear that the power plant was discharging only 200 CCs, of water against its permitted limits of 350 CCs.
The problem of water logging arose as the Bein was unable to carry the discharge from the plant because of its uneven bed, a team of PEDA officials had observed. Officials of the drainage department said there was no proposal to de-silt the Bein. The Deputy Commissioner Dharam Datt Tarnach, who visited the area two days ago , said, " Asurvey of the area was conducted by the experts after the problem arose. The issue is in the notice of the government and will be solve shortly."
Avtar Singh Gill, Director and Promoter of the company has sought comensation from the government claiming he was suffring from daily loss of near about 100,000. "It was the government's job to provide a hassle -free atmosphere to the company to run the project. The government gas not solved the obstacle posed by the Bein bed which led to the problem. This is fault of the Punjab government. The government must compensate me", claimed Gill.