Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 21: Notwithstanding its tall claims the Power Development Department (PDD) to check T&D losses and pilferage of power, it could not meet its claims of 50 per cent metering of existing connection so far.
Authoritative sources informed Early Times that the department has metered only 6, 67,757 connections of out of 13, 88,245 registered connections across the State. In Kashmir valley about 35 percent connections have been metered so far. "There are 7, 55,020 connections in Kashmir valley and 3, 23,579 connection had been metered by January end,' sources said and adding that here in Jammu 3, 44,178 connections have metered against 6, 33,325 registered connections.
"Government is under pressure to arrest T&D losses, despite receiving grants from Union Government for arresting T&D losses, State has failed to show any laudable improvement. The losses were highest, 65.78 percent for 2009-10, 60.99 percent for the 2010-11 and around 59.72 percent for last fiscal" they revealed.
They further said, "Government has found itself in an awkward position before the Planning Commission over its failure to improve performance on the T&D front. It has even failed to meet the guidelines set by Union Power Ministry to bring down the losses by three percent annually."
According to estimates by PDD, the Aggregate Technical and Commercial Losses (AT&C) in the State's power sector are 72 percent highest in the country. "The department gets returns of 28 percent out of total energy pumped into the system while at national level the loss is around 28 percent only," sources said.
They said the power purchase bill for current financial year is estimated to be around Rs 2,944 cr against the expected revenue of Rs 1,136 crore. "The unmet revenue gap, which is around Rs 1800 crore due to power losses, is a great drain on the State exchequer," they said. |
