A simple and efficient Lambda logic (${lambda}-logic$) based algorithm is proposed for the solution of the generator constrained economic dispatch problem when the generating units having prohibited zones. The proposed method solves the economic dispatch (ED) problem that takes into account ramprate limits, transmission losses and prohibited operating zones in the power system operation. The proposed method uses a simple heuristic rule based on average power of prohibited operating zones which produces the feasibility of solution for the restricted operating units. The effectiveness of the algorithm is tested on five different test systems and the performance compared with other relevant methods reported in the literature. In all the cases, the proposed algorithm performs better than the previous existing algorithms with a less computational burden.