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| Why did PDD wait for youth's death to start Pampore Gas turbine unit? | | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Jan 3: It is a great tragedy that the State government decided to start the Pampore Gas Turbine unit to augment the electric power supply in the Valley only after a youth lost his life agitating against the electricity power scenario in Boniyar town of Baramulla district.
The Chief Minister assured the locals in Boniyar that they will get their additional demand of electricity within the next two days. It is singularly unfortunate that the State government should wake up to the problems of the people only after violence breaks out in one way or the other.
The State Development Commissioner Power, Salroo issued a statement yesterday announcing the starting of the Gas Turbine in Pampore. Why was not the gas turbine operation started before the unfortunate incident at Boniyar? Did the State government not realize the gravity of the electric power situation in the Valley before what happened at Boniyar? It is strange that the announcement of the gas turbine operations should have coincided with the death of the 12th class student in Boniyar. Promising more electricity to a family that had to lose a son for their genuine demand is something the State government should have thought of before the tragedy and not after it.
There have been widespread protests against the deteriorating electric power supply in the Valley in the past as well. Electricity has become something that the State government has not been able to come to grips with. Through successive governments, despite more and more power generating projects coming up in the State, the scarcity of electricity has impeded all industrial activity in the Valley.
No industrial unit worth the name has been able to come up in the Valley primarily because the State government cannot provide adequate electric power to such a unit to sustain and make profits.
All the government has done is offer excuses. Sometimes it is the low water levels in the State's rivers and sometimes it is the misuse of the energy that the PDD has been blaming for the frustrating electric supply in the Valley.
The option whether one lives in a metered area or an unmetered area is no longer available to Kashmiris when the question of uninterrupted electric power supply comes. Wherever, you live in the Valley, you have to face continued and unscheduled curtailments, shutdowns, breakdowns and other reasons for a failed power supply.
PDD is a department that is handled by the Chief Minister himself and therefore, he cannot escape the responsibility for the department's failure. The State government maintains that the exchequer has been losing rupees 2000 crores each year because of the imports it has to make from the Northern Power Grid during the winter months.
Interestingly, the Chief Minister has also said he would now approach the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh so that more electric power is made available to the State from the country's Northern Power Grid.
The statement of the government that it would be taking over Salal and Uri hydel power stations from the NHPC in order to own these power generating projects has already been refuted by the NHPC. The Chief Minister must in his own interest make a clear announcement on this account. The double speak has not helped in the past and will definitely not help in the future.
The statement by Taj Mohiuddin, the minister for PHE, that the State would get crores as water usage charges from the NHPC has also been proved wrong after the NHPC said it would deduct the same from the 12% royalty charges given by the NHPC to the PDD and then pay the recovered charges to the PHE. Does the government not know this? If Yes is the answer, then who are we trying to deceive? |
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