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| ‘Separate power budget is hogwash’ | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Oct 6
Dark days may wink the people of Jammu and Kashmir during the ensuing winter season, when the local power generation is expected to go down drastically, if the State failed to persuade the centre to increase its share from the local hydel projects from 12 per cent to 25 per cent. The days could be colder if neither the Northern grid nor Punjab and nor Jharkhand come to the rescue of the state.
Engineers say that the power generation from Uri, Lower Jehlum and Salal projects goes down by 50 per cent during the winter season. They said that the state polls approximately 300 MWs of electricity per day from various power projects. To bridge the demand supply gap the state has been purchasing from the northern grid about 200 MWs per day. As a result of assistance from the centre the state has been able to draw 850MWs of electricity from the northern grid while the daily demand ranges between 1100 and 1200 MWs.The total requirement of the state is however 1800-2000 MW but due to inadequate supply the state power department has been resorting to frequent load shedding. On an average power curtailment in different areas range between 6-8 hours causing great inconvenience to consumers. Tall promises made by the coalition government to provide uninterrupted power supply have already fallen flat.
According to the PDD engineers, the deficit has forced the PDD to go in load shedding for a period of four to six hours in phases as there is no alternative.
Though Dhul Hasti has been commissioned it has not given much relief to the state because out of its optimum capacity of 390 MWs the state gets only 46 MWs per day.The state is receiving 57.6MW of power from Uri, and 83 MW from Salal as free units but this alone is not enough to address the crisis situation. We need more power to light our home state and unless we will get the same we cannot wait for some miracle as the situation is worsening with each passing day as winter progresses, a senior PDD official said expressing helplessness. Meanwhile the department is regularly receiving complaints from far flung areas during the month of Ramzaan that they do not get power supply during Iftaar .
It may be mentioned that for past several years the state government has introduced various measures to improve the power scenario in the state but due to poor recovery and continued pilferage of power coupled with transmission and distribution losses the state government continue to struggle to provide uninterruptible power supply to the power consumers. Measures such as separate power budget which were introduced by the Azad led coalition govt in the state has failed to yield desired results. Separate power grants have also failed to improve the situation, the power engineers said claiming the arrangement is hogwash. |
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