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| CAG pulls JK Govt for elusive State Electricity Policy | | | Mustansir
Srinagar, Nov 4: The Comptroller and Auditor General has flayed Jammu and Kashmir government for its failure to devise a state Electricity Policy as envisaged in the National Electricity Policy.
The National Electricity Policy (NEP) recognized the need for continued development of National Grid for providing adequate infrastructure for inter-state transmission of power. Both the Central Transmission Utility (CTU) and the State Transmission Utility (STU) have the key responsibility of network planning and development based on the NEP in coordination with all the concerned agencies. The transmission of electricity and Grid operations in the State are managed and controlled by the Power Development Department.
The performance Audit of Transmission utilities in the state revealed under -utilization of plan funds and non-achievement of targets in capacity additions in respect of Grid sub-stations and Transmission lines. Almost all the Grid sub-stations and Transmission Lines projects witnessed a time over-run due to inadequate planning, faulty designs etc. Some of the of the completed projects could not be operationalized due to incompletion of related works, with the result the infrastructure created was lying idle. The Transmission losses in the State exceeded the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) norm of four per cent during the 2008-12. Due to inefficient Grid management of the State Government had to pay the unscheduled Interchange (UI) charges. The disaster management setup did not exist in the Department for immediate restoration of transmission system in the event of major failures.
The Department transmitted 8,010 Million Units (MU) of energy during 2007-08 which increased by 29% to 10,367 MU in 2011-12 while as the transmission network installed capacity increased from 4,489 MVA in 2007-08 to 7,273 MVA in 2011-12.
The Department had not formulated the State Electricity Policy and State Electricity Plan. Although 85 % households were electrified as per Census 2011 figures, the number of households covered by properly functional meters was far less as evidenced by the huge gap between expenditure on purchase of power by the Department and its receipts.
The time overrun in completion of 400 projects ranged between three and 48 months and the cost overrun of Rs 113.43 crore was noticed in 23 projects. The maintenance of assets was ignored and the expenditure on maintenance of the infrastructure was very low.
The Transmission and distribution losses were very high at the level of 56.76% (2011-12). The Transmission losses ranged between 4.43 and 8.14 percent against CEA norms of 4%.
Due to non-maintenance of Grid discipline, the department had to bear the burden of payment of unscheduled interchange UI charges to the extent of Rs. 1405.67 crore and had also to pay the interest of Rs. 289.93 crore for delayed payment of these UI charges. Failure in installing PF, correctional capacitor banks by the department resulted in payment of Rs. 220.65 crore on account of reactive energy charges. In decision on the part of the department for evacuation of the power from the thein dam HEP project for the last 3 decades. resulted in non-utilization of 220KV double circuit thein-Hira Nagar transmission line and consequent idle investment of Rs. 25.73 crore. The percentage of shortage of power ranged between 34 and 38 per cent from 2007-08 to 2011-12.
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