Power Pangs
Jammu and Kashmir is groping in darkness as frequent power cuts have become a routine now. The situation is such that most of the times, there is no electric supply during Iftaar and Sehri timings. It is for the first time that the people here are witnessing such power crisis particularly during the month of April.
It may be mentioned here that ahead of Ramzan, the Chief Secretary of J&K, Dr A K Mehta chaired a meeting and directed the concerned authorities to ensure uninterrupted power supply particularly during Iftaar and Sehri hours. However, nothing of the sort has happened. While in Kashmir Valley people are forced to have Iftaar and Shri without any power supply, in Jammu, in absence of electricity people are suffering in terribly hot temperatures.
The concerned authorities have not come out with any detailed explanation as to what are the reasons for their frequent power cuts. Though, in bits and shreds, the authorities talk about coal crisis, they have no explanation that why coal crisis should impact electricity supply to J&K when the UT doesn’t have a single thermal power project.
The authorities insist that the gap between supply and demand has grown so much that power cuts have become inevitable. If it is so, wasn’t the administration aware of this fact when ahead of Ramzan, the Chief Secretary talked about uninterrupted power supply during Iftaar and Sehri hours?
On Tuesday, KPDCL in a press brief has informed that load served during April has been around 900 to 1100MW against a demand of 1600MW thereby creating a deficit. It said that this deficit has forced corporation to go for unscheduled cuts.
KPDCL added that early arrival of summer in rest of the country led to highest ever power demand and reduced thermal power generation coupled with sub-optimal generation of hydro power due to reduced discharge because of less rains have resulted in deficient power availability leading to unscheduled and prolonged power cuts.
While sharing details about current capacity, it said that hydro generation currently is around 50% of the installed capacity and load supplied by KPDCL is in the range of 900-1100 MWs against the peak demand of 1600MW.
Though the authorities informed that the hydro generation is expected to improve once discharge increases to optimal level in coming weeks subject to sufficient rainfall, the explanation is too little and too late.
The holy month of Ramzan is almost over and only a few days are left. People would have appreciated had the administration come up earlier with some plausible reason and shared it with the consumers. Sharing this information now is nothing but adding insult to the injuries.
