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| Power scenario in Jammu to get grimmer in summers | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 19
Already gripped with power crisis, the situation in Jammu region of the state is likely to get grimmer in the coming days, as a consequence of the Power Development Department’s failure to collect tariff for the services supplied to the consumers.
With the current financial year at its fag end, the Department has not been able to realize, even half of the cost for the power, it has supplied to the consumers, domestic, commercial and government establishments during the year.
Highly placed sources said that for consumption of about 3 thousand million units in Jammu Division, costing over rupees twelve crores, the department has been able to collect only around three hundred fifty crores, just 33 percent of the overall cost.
The main defaulters continue to be the government departments, which owe about rupees three hundred crores to the department as the cost of the energy. Even some small and big industrial houses also have to pay huge power tariff bills.
Another major factor, draining the resources of the department are continuous Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses, which are still at forty to forty fiver percent mark, despite crores of spending on its improvement, under schemes, like APDRP and special funds for power sector, received under Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Programme.
The immediate fallout of the poor performance of the department in revenue collection is going to be on the power supply to areas of Jammu region in coming months of the summer season, sources said.
“The consumption during the summer months is very high in districts of Jammu, Kathua, Samba and Udhampur that forces the department to go for additional power extractions from the Northern Grid, sources said adding that if the state would not be able to pay the cost of the already consumed energy, the Grid authorities would not allow more extraction. They said that in that case the department had to remain dependent on the local generation and the share it is getting from the NHPC projects in the state, which is just half of the total local requirements. |
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