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| Parties gathering words for public agenda | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 31; As the poll campaign heats up several mainstream political parties have started working out their campaign strategies to outnumber their political adversaries in the coming polls.
To begin with the acute scarcity of power and poor pace of developmental activities, rampant corruption will remain high point of poll campaign for all the opposition parties.
In the last few days, power curtailment for long hours, has attracted attention of all the political parties and they have started organizing street demonstrations to fix responsibility of the state government for failing to provide uninterrupted power supply.
Leaders belonging to the BJP, the Panthers Party and the National Conference, out rightly blame the Congress led coalition government for power crisis in the state.
These opposition leaders say by separating power budget from the main budget the Congress led coalition Government had failed to achieve the aim of improving the power supply system
Since 2006 the then coalition Government had introduced separate power budget in the Assembly to "set the power mess right." In the power budgets the Government had announced that the annual power deficit of Rs.1300 crores would be met from the special central assistance of Rs.1000 crores from the Ministry of Finance and Rs.300 crores from the Planning Commission. The purpose of this central funding was to enable the state Government to reduce the overdraft bill and reduce the transmission and distribution losses by augmenting the transmission system.
BJP President Ashok Khajuria today said that despite central funding for the last three years the report card of the Power Development Department "was a picture of dismal performance." He said the power crisis has touched a new high with curtailment ranging between 11 to 13 hours a day.
General Secretary of the Panthers Party, Harsh Dev Singh, said that the Government had promised that those areas where electronic metres had been installed would receive uninterrupted power supply was not fulfilled. He said that during the last over five years there was no sign of improvement in power supply and the transmission system. He said transformers had outlived their utility and no step has been taken to replace them with the result people continued to face lot of inconvenience.
He and National Conference leaders, including Ajay Sadhotra, Provincial President, said that the Government's failure to improve power supply would be "our main poll issue." They said that the former Government had exhausted the funds meant for purchase of power from the northern grid. They explained there was no shortage of power but the state administration had no money to buy additional power. |
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