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| Advanced winters advance power, water woes in Kashmir | | | Bashir Assad
Srinagar, Oct 22: As the harsh winters have set in Kashmir earlier than scheduled , power and water woes have begun in villages across Kashmir and the unscheduled power cuts have become order of the day resulting in complete darkness across the length and breadth of the valley. Pertinently, the erratic power supply is witnessed in both metered and non-metered areas equally.
Massive power cuts have snapped the patience of people as they prepare for the long and grueling winter ahead. This has given rise to another kind of unrest in the valley as the people in hundreds including men, women and children are coming on streets every day since last one week or so protesting against the erratic power supply on one hand and the shortage of essentials including cooking gas and timber on the other hand.
Reports of people protesting against poor power scenario are reaching here from all districts where the residents are staging sit in.
Though the PDD officials are citing the fall of generation and power theft by the consumers as the main cause for the unscheduled cuts, people, however, put the blame squarely on the government for its failure to provide scheduled power supply even to the meteoric areas.
PDD officials Monday told Early Times that since the power generation falls to a third during winters, the curtailment has accordingly been fixed at eight and a half hours in non metered areas while as in the metered areas, the curtailment is just of three to four hours.
"The valley needs 1350 MW but we have only 900 MW available at the moment, so we have to go for uncomfortable power curtailment" a senior PDD official told Early Times.
The official said, "we are giving 900 MW of power in the valley which is 150 MW more than last year, which means there is about 20 per cent increase. But we are following curtailment of eight and a half hours in non-metered areas.''
However, the transmission and distribution losses which have gone up to 67% since last year, have also contributed to the darkness which looms large in Kashmir with the onset of winters.
Meanwhile early snowfall in the higher reaches last week brought down the temperatures in theKashmir Valley considerably giving residents a feeling of the winter setting in earlier than scheduled. This has send in cold winds into the plains thereby bringing down the temperatures.
People are apprehensive that winter is going to be harsh this year since the summer was hotter than usual in 2012."Normally, winter sets in by December, but this year it appears it has come much earlier and so the power and water woes. It appears we are in for a harsh winter since people have already started using woolens," said Abdul Gani resident of South Kashmir.
Autumn has been usually a dry season in Kashmir, known for fading and falling leaves before the winter starts in December. However for the past few days, weather in Kashmir has been comparatively cold particularly during mornings and evenings.
"This is because of the snowfall on mountains and upper reaches," said a Met official. People believe that the drop in temperature and chilly weather conditions are indications of early onset of winter.
The weatherman said the temperature recorded across the Valley for past few days has been much below normal.
"The chilly conditions are indicating that people should make winter preparations early," said a pedestrian at Lal Chowk. The deteriorating power scenario in Kashmir Valley adds up to people's miseries during the winter months. People have been complaining of increase in the unscheduled power cuts for the past fortnight which have increased their woes at the time of cooking gas crisis. |
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