As the winter ended, the Power Development Department is set to issue a new power curtailment schedule within next week for the Kashmir valley. For winters, the PDD had announced power curtailment schedule in November last year where the metered areas are subjected to 21 hours of weekly cut and non-metered 42 hours. While an official of the PDD said that there will be improvement in power supply in the coming days.
“A new schedule will be announced in the next few days and will give big relief to people from power problems,” the official told KNS. “We will be holding meeting and decided power schedule for the summers. I think the schedule will be same as was during last summer,” the official added. The PDD had announced power curtailment schedule in both metered and non-metered areas days after the Civil Secretariat; highest seat of power was shifted to Jammu for six months. However people believe that the curtailment in metered areas was against the norms where the department is bound to provide round-the-clock power supply.
“The Department has been violating its own schedule by resorting to unscheduled powers cuts in metered areas,” said Khurshid Ahmad, a resident of Pampore. People in the valley are facing abrupt power cuts, saying that PDD was failing to adhere its power curtailment schedule. “The frequent power cuts have made our lives miserable,” Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, a resident of Bemina said. He said they face around 10 hour power cuts in a day. He said the announcement of additional power to the state did not make any difference. “We used to face 10 hour power cuts before the announcement and face the same,” he said.
Ali Mohammad, a resident of Bemina said that there have been severe power cuts since the Darbar shifted to Jammu. “The situation is turning from bad to the worse,” he said.
The centre in December last year announced an allocation of additional power of 792 MW for Jammu and Kashmir in view of higher demand in winters in the state. However, people say that there has been no improvement in power supply in the valley.
Meanwhile, an official said people were “responsible” for the power problem in the state. He said the upgrading and creation of new infrastructure would not help the state to improvise power until there is 100 percent installation of metres.The PDD has projected installation of 11, 47,723 metres between 2015 and 2019 in domestic and non-domestic categories and has set up target of 100 percent metering to 2019. Recently, the government said that energy consumed in Kashmir till December last year was 6,679.930 MU against 6,466.060 MU the previous year, while it was 5,319.684 MU in Jammu in 2017 against 5,239.538 in 2016.