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| PDD subjects Jammu to midnight power cuts in scorching May | | Coalition awaits another dose of public wrath | | Abodh Sharma
Jammu, May 27: Utter failure of the Coalition Government in affecting reforms in the power sector and avail decent power supply to the consumers across the state has spelled doom for the coalition partners in the recently concluded parliamentary elections and going by the current state of power supply during the hostile summer months, both Congress and the National Conference are going to face the wrath of the people in Assembly elections too due to their non performance.
While Government is mulling a cut in the existing power tariff ahead of elections in a bid to regain lost ground, the anguish amongst the people of all the three regions is so much that such a step would hardly transform into electoral favours. Pathetic power scenario in the state which boasts of having a generation potential of 20k megawatts has deteriorated with each passing year during the coalition regime and the people are left to face harsh winters and scorching summers amidst untimely, unscheduled and prolonged cuts. "Children, old and ailing are left wailing due to prolonged cuts in the middle of nights after facing similar cuts throughout the day also" said Pankaj Gupta, a resident of Roopnagar, who pays his power bills regularly and uses electricity judiciously. "It is the duty of the government to provide uninterrupted power supply to its citizens and also to institutionalize a fool proof mechanism of revenue collection, but the government has failed on both fronts" he added.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had conveniently washed his hands off the messy state of affairs in power sector. "The people of Kashmir shall suffer in winters and those in Jammu shall suffer in Summers" Omar had said suggesting that people did not pay up their electricity bills; but the fact of the matter is that Omar has to take lion's share of the failure in executing power reforms and revenue collection system. Despite getting huge funds from the centre for implementing measures to check power pilferage and transmission losses, state has not been able to perform satisfactorily in five years. The promised 100 percent metering remains a distant dream, undergrounding and use of insulated transmission line to stop pilferage had hardly taken off and the revenue collection system has been hijacked by corrupt employees.
Ministry of Power, Government of India launched the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP) in July 2008. The scheme was launched in the state with an allocation of Rs. 20 crore (Rs. 1 crore per district) during the current fiscal. The aim of the scheme was to replace the rotten poles, un-serviceable/ unauthorized conductors; replacement of un-authorized/ sub-standard line supports with standard poles, replacement of damaged LT cables of Distribution Transformers, replacement of damaged insulators and damaged earthing of Distribution Sub-Stations.
However despite schemes and allocations, there has been no visible change on ground and the people have been subjected to intense victimization due to midnight power cuts and Omar does not need too much introspection to figure out how this failure of his government would smash his hopes in the coming Assembly elections too. |
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