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| Power police needs urgent review | | | At times both the state Government and the centre nore the restrictions that have been imposed on the use of river water in Jammu and Kashmir by the Indus Water Treaty of 1960.The result of this deliberate ignorance is that those who plan new power projects lay emphasis on construction of hydel projects with source from either river Jehlum or Chenab. Already two major projects, three units of Lower Jehlum Hydel project and the Uri phase I project, are functional but the water level in the Jehlum during the four winter months is so low that the power generation from these two projects is reduced to as little as 24 per cent.The optimum capacity of Lower Jehlum and the URI phase I is 505 MWs and during the lean period the power generation from these two drops to 120 MWs. What a loss ?The experts, instead of learning from it,have started construction of Uri Phase II which too will have the installed capacity of 400 MWs. This optimum capacity may be possible hardly during five six months. Similarly on river Chenab there are three major projects, the 690 MW Salal,390 MW Dhul Hasti and 450 MW Bhagliar.Again during the lean periods the generation drops by 70 per cent. This calls for a review of power generation policy. Experts are of the opinion that building large or medium power plants was not only time consuming but a drain on state resources when these projects fail to generate as much power as per their installed capacity. First of all while carrying out a review of the power policy the Government needs to examine the factors that were responsible for the failure on the part of the successive regimes in building mini power plants. In late 70's the state Government had identified nearly 40 places in Jammu and Kashmir where mini power plants could be set up. And out of those sanction was accorded to 14 mini power projects. Nearly 29 years have elapsed and one does not see more than three such projects having been commissioned during all these years. Before the Government clears other major projects it would be better if the it lays stress on the construction of these mini projects plus explore the possibility of inviting private entrepreneurs, especially big industrialists, who may be offered 40 to 50 per cent power share from the projects they build. This experiment has been conducted with success in Himachal Pradesh where big industrialists have set up large power plants and they have been allowed to transmit 50 per cent of electricity generated from the projects to their industrial units located in other states. Himachal Government has also adopted the Chinese practice of constructing mini power plants near the rivers and runnels which feed the adjoining areas. Another step in the development of power generation is to step up work on about a dozen projects, including 93 MWs New Ganderbal 450 MWs Bhagliar Phase II. Unless the state is able to add at least 5,000 MWS of electricity within next five years Jammu and Kashmir may not achieve big strides in industrial and agricultural sectors.
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