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| Summers on, wait for darker side: 10-hours power cuts in offing | | |
SALMAN NIZAMI
Jammu, May: Jammu and Kashmir may be witnessing long power cuts from ending May onwards as the state is on the verge of a power crisis due to a widening gap between the demand and supply of electricity.
Sources in Power Development Department (PDD) revealed that few days back the officials of the department in a plea before the Chief Secretary contended to provide uninterrupted power supply to consumers and has proposed a daily power curtailment of 10 hours in the cities and district headquarters across the State. Even in the month of April, the department had sought the imposition of power cuts but due to the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections (LS), no power cuts were imposed to keep the voters in good humor. State has a requirement of about 1800 MW of power per day but it is unable to meet its requirement despite the fact that it is overdrawing as much as 250 mw of power almost on daily basis. The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that even several important and strategic installations have been deprived of power in view of frequent power curtailments.
"Crisis was brewing up in Jammu province particularly where several important areas including the 12 & 23 Rashtriya Rifles in Banihal have not been spared", informed sources placed deeply and added that few days’ back, senior army officials had approached the department as repeated power cuts were posing serious problems to the security forces. Officials expressed grave concern over the problem as it had started affecting their functioning. "Several equipments were dependent on power and there were other sensitive areas which needed to be taken care of as this is the operational command", sources informed and added that due to lack of power availability in the province, administration had advised the army officials to purchase their own generators. Katra town - the abode of Vaishno Devi Shrine had also been suffering from acute power shortage despite over three lakh devotees from across the country visit the shrine every month. Since the State is overdrawing power from the northern grid on regular basis and is one of the major defaulters, it has to face shut downs. Industrial sector was also facing a piquant situation with increasing power cuts. While there was scheduled power cut of nearly 8.5 hours on daily basis, the authorities at the helm of affairs were being forced to impose additional unscheduled cut of 3 more hours. The Public Health Engineering (PHE) department is alone contributed to load of 100 mw and the current crisis was also posing a threat to this area.
Commissioner Secretary Sandeep Naik confessed that the State was facing power shortage despite the fact that it was being allowed to overdraw from the power grid. "Interestingly, State like J and K, Himachal Pradesh are having major hydro power potential and provide surplus power to northern grid during summers emerge as major defaulters during the winter seasons", he said and added "Often other states have to bear the burden of our excessive withdrawal".
The main reason for the present power shortage was because of less power generation due to considerable decrease in water discharge in all the rivers of northern region on account of dry winter, Naik said and added that Salal Project, having power potential of 680 mw was providing nearly 40 mw, while as Uri (480 mw) Baglihar hydo-electric power project is providing 450 mw, Dullhasti Power Project providing 400mws, however, things were comparatively better in Uri as it was not possible to store water in the dam. Similar was the case with other hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh, which are feeding to the grid. "There was no choice but to resort to overdrawing of power and load shedding was bound to happen when the power frequency touched as low as 49 at times", he said and added, "we should be thankful to New Delhi for allowing us to overdraw power and this was possible only after personal intervention of the Chief Minister and his telephonic interaction with Union Power Minister few days’ back".
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