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| Power casting shadow on Omar's iconic image | | | Abodh Sharma
Jammu, June 24: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's image as frontline generation next leader of the country alongside likes of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav is likely to take a serious dent as lakhs of pilgrims and tourists pouring in in the state are carrying back a poor impression of the power starved and water parched state of the iconic young Chief Minister; Especially given the fact that Omar himself is the Power Minister of the state that has emerged as powerless disaster.
"It is ridiculous. I reached here yesterday and since then there barely has been power" said Paresh Bhai Patel who checked into a city hotel for Shri Amaranth yatra. "There is little water and the ACs do not work" he added complaining of a restless night. "I wonder how people survive here in such hot summer" he added further.
Patels are not the only ones who have been taken aback by the plight of people of Jammu and are stunned by state government's cold indifference
towards its own people. There are others who have been touched by scrape of people of Jammu who brave mid night cuts strolling on top of their roofs with little children waiting for the illusive power to return.
While the aura of an efficient young Chief Minister across the country is disappearing thick and fast, the people of the state are facing the follies of state's bureaucrats, technocrats and their political masters who are covering themselves by accusing consumers of not paying up their power bills.
Portraying a dismal picture of state's power scenario, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its recent report reveals that the T&D losses in the state have nearly touched a whopping 70 percent.
"As per a Memorandum of Understanding executed with Government of India under Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme (APDRP), the state government was committed to bring down T&D losses to 25 percent by Dec 2006. But contrary to it, the losses have alarmingly gone up from 45 percent in 2005-06 to 62 percent in 2010-11 due to unsatisfactory implementation of the Centrally sponsored power reform Programmes" the report of the CAG observes. Notwithstanding the adverse report of the CAG, the state government has sought another Rs 1700 cr. for checking the T&D losses in the state which it has failed to do in spite previous allocations for the same purpose.
Meanwhile, various consumers' representative bodies have lambasted Chief Minister for his repeated accusations that consumers have not been paying their power revenue honestly. "there is so much the government could do to realize power revenue after electronic metering of most parts of the state, but due to lack of political and administrative will, the system has not been institutionalized like in other states of the country where power distribution and revenue collection have been privatized" said Pawan Singh Manhas, president of a residents welfare association in Talab Tillo area. |
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