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| As mercury soars, Jammu reels under power outages | | It seems JKPDC system has collapsed, say locals | | Early Times Report
Jammu, June 8: As the mercury soars the residents of Jammu province have started facing power outages for hours together for the last few days, making it difficult for many of them to bear the brunt of blazing temperature.
There is no relief to the residents for the next few days as temperature is likely to hover above 40 degrees, which will increase the power load and result in power curtailments.
For the last few days the mercury has started touching 40 degree Celsius while the power supply also started playing hide and seek, giving sleepless nights to the residents.
“Earlier there were scheduled power curtailments but this time, the curtailments are abrupt and unscheduled causing inconvenience to all the residents”, a local said, adding that elderly people, patients as well as children are worst affected by the soaring mercury coupled with frequent power outages. “There is around 6-8 hours power curtailment for the last few days together, while even during the supply, power is curtailed for few minutes several times, due to reasons best known to the authorities”, Sham Sharma of Satwari said, adding that during the past years, whenever there were power outages, people used to venture outside to parks, canals, shopping malls or to some hilly areas to beat the heat but this year, due to Covid-19 pandemic, going to some hilly areas or in parks or along Canals, was not considered safe.
Moreover the electrical appliances have also not been able to work efficiently. “Cold water is in great demand but refrigerators are finding it hard to cool the water due to frequent curtailments.
While the inverters have also not been able to charge fully and during curtailments, people have to suffer without even fan”, Yoginder Pal said, adding that due to increase in load, the curtailments have increased but the department should take action against the illegal connections. The Covid-19 second wave has forced the residents to stay indoors but the power outages have made life difficult.
“The Power department used to claim that round the clock power supply will be ensured in the metered areas but the department has failed to do so”, another resident said, adding that the department should minimize the curtailments.
An official of the department, wishing anonymity said that due to increase in temperature, the load has increased to between 50-80 MWs due to which curtailments have been made by the department. He further said though so far the power scenario is stable in Jammu province in comparison to the past years.
“As the temperature increases, the usage of power appliances increases so does the load. To save the power equipment including the supply wires and transformers, the department is forced to curtail the power supply to save the equipments”, the official said, adding that for the next few days as the temperature was expected to increase, the power curtailments would also increase.
Locals said that it seems system of the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation Limited (JKPDCL) is appeared to have collapsed as most parts of Jammu witnessed unscheduled and unprecedented cuts on Tuesday.
People have reasons to blame JKPDCL for this situation because in most parts of Jammu city and adjoining areas, electronic meters have been installed on the poles. People of Jammu city and adjoining areas are regularly paying power tariff.
The people alleged that unscheduled power cuts have increased their problems and the department is not taking effective steps to improve the electricity supply as a result of which, there is outrage among the people towards the department.
Locals alleged that thousands of rupees are paid as electricity bill every month by the residents of Jammu city, despite this department has failed to provide people with this basic right of uninterrupted power. |
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