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| Sale of modern heating appliances goes up as winter chill sets in, no penalty against defaulters | | | Jammu, Nov 27
Even though state continues to reel under severe power crisis there is no check on sale of luxury heating appliances in the state which is recording upward trend making it even more difficult for the power development department to meet demand of uninterrupted power supply to the consumers.
Last year soon after Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad lifted the blanket ban on the use of heaters after local residents in Kashmir launched a massive protests he had directed the PDD authorities to check misuse of luxury heating goods in order to save power but it seems CMs warning to senior PDD authorities have failed to make any difference s on the ground as the department has not penalized defaulters in order to teach lessons to those misusing scarce power supply.
Sources in the PDD said that after few raids were conducted the drive went off the radar as most of the consumers of luxury heating appliances form major chunk of state machinery.
A senior PDD official said it is a tendency among power consumers to shift the blame on us whereas we enjoy little freedom when it comes to nailing 'vvip' power defaulters.
He said the drive lacked political will to crack down on the defaulters as most of them belong to elite class of the society and indulge in rampant misuse of power blaming small consumers for power pilferage.
“More than a year has passed and we have failed to formulate any plan to reduce the peak load in winter season”, another PDD employee said suggesting that senior authorities lack direction to tackle the power crisis.
Significantly, each year total peak load requirement of the state is surging ahead making it difficult for PDD to meet up the demand from scarce resources but no efforts have been made to address the issue permanently.
With mercury recording a sharp decline with each passing day ahead of harsh winters sale of heating appliances including blowers, room heaters, water geysers and several other traditional items such as Kangris, ‘angeethi’ are recording a upward trend compared to previous year, a local businessmen in Raghunath bazaar said.
He said compared to previous year this year the demand for room heaters and blowers is high and hence more units of power is required which is not available.
He said large number of people had started discarding traditional methods of keeping themselves warm and have instead started relying n modern methods such as use of blowers and room heaters at the expense of scarce power. |
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