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| Put a water policy in place | | |
Former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed sounds quite sensible when he vociferously calls for an end to arbitrary exploitation of water resources of Jammu and Kashmir. Mufti has been continuously raising this issue while as Chief Minister, before that and after that. In fact during his time as Chief Minister he took some measures to protect state’s water resources and to use them to maximum benefit of the state but achieving this objective needs a good deal of time and across the board consensus which Mufti did not have at his command. There is a need to pick up the threats from where he had left and there is time to think of a comprehensive hydel policy to the maximum sovereign economic benefits of Jammu and Kashmir. Our state is perhaps the only state in country being rich in resources and poor in its economic outlook. While we have huge mineral wealth, herbal zones, tourism potential and vast agricultural fields but what really can make this state one of the richest in the country is the proper utilization of hydel resources. We have a bad history of dependence in meeting our electricity needs while we could have been surplus producers but for policies of the state governments over past 60 years. It is no secret that power sector is one such area which makes Jammu and Kashmir poor and completely derails its fiscal management. The total expenditure on procurement and maintenance of power supply system runs close to Rs 2000 Crores a year and the total revenue generation is anywhere around Rs 400 Crores. Some efforts were made over past few years to minimize this deficit which certainly bore some results but these are just temporary arrangements of internal fiscal management. Therefore, a loss of anywhere between Rs 1200 Crores to Rs 1500 Crores going to continue till an alternative approach is adopted. In fact the governments from time to time have got their policies, approaches and vision on the power sector wronged as the thinking does not seem to be going beyond meeting daily needs. There is a policy of adhocism. Whenever issue is raised about water resources and power production pat comes the reply from whatever government is there in place: “Jammu and Kashmir has been made to suffer losses on account of Indus Water Treaty”. It is true that the Indus Water Treaty is arbitrary as far as interests of Jammu and Kashmir are concerned. The IWT, which is globally hailed for its survival despite odd, odds benefits India and Pakistan and not Jammu and Kashmir. But the treaty can’t be blamed for the poor state of affairs on power front of Jammu and Kashmir. Leave aside the losses suffered under treaty, not more than 10 per cent of the remaining water sources have been exploited by the state. Looking at the entire power infrastructure of the past one gets to know that the state has been able to tap only 800 MW potential in the state sector. So, where does IWT comes in the way of harnessing power potential. Another systematic loss to the state is award of all key projects to the National Hydro-electric Power Corporation. After coming into being, the first ever hydel project built by the NHPC was in J&K and the state continues to be main sources of maximum profits of the Corporation. It is time that Jammu and Kashmir strengthened its own Power Development Corporation and arranged funds for construction of mini and mega projects in the state sector.
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