While reviewing the electric power scenario in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, Chief Minister told the Power Development Department to have a transparent curtailment schedule with minimal cuts in power supply. He made it clear that while people are ready to accept planned curtailments, unexpected and prolonged power cuts are difficult for them to tolerate and therefore the concerned authorities should ensure that deviations from announced curtailment schedules are kept to an absolute bare minimum. The Chief Minister also launched the Monitoring of Load Curtailment Programme by clicking on www.LCPJK.in, which the concerned authorities believe is a significant step toward ensuring transparency and accountability in power curtailment schedules.
Whatever has been said in the meeting sounds music to ears but will it have any positive impact on the ground remains to be seen. While mercury is dipping down with every passing day, Kashmir is facing unscheduled and un-announced power cuts in the length and breadth. While the concerned authorities, day in and day out, make tall claims of following the announced load-shedding schedule, the situation on the ground, particularly in rural areas tells a different story. This is happening despite the UT administration’s repeated assurances that in comparison to previous years, a better power supply will be ensured this winter. The administration has been speaking about massive improvement in power sector but what is happening on the ground doesn’t gel with these assurances. If there has been some improvement, why it is not reflecting on the ground?
One may not disagree with the concerned authorities when they say that during peak hours, some consumers in non-metered areas use crude heating gadgets and indulge in power theft thus exceeding the load that results into unscheduled power cuts but the question is that who is to stop this practice? If the concerned authorities are failing in establishing writ of the rule, why poor consumers, whose homes are metered and who are paying the bills religiously, should suffer? Why should commoners be victimised because the concerned authorities don’t have will to control the pilferage of power? The much bigger question is, why all the areas are not metered? If the authorities have failed to do so, why should people be made to suffer for this inefficiency.
Jammu and Kashmir, despite having huge potential to generate hydro electric power, given its water resources, has been facing a chronic power crisis from ages. While people in Kashmir face it in winters, people in Jammu division face the same crisis during summers. Winter is the time when Kashmir needs electric power the most and in summers, Jammu people need it more. However, fact of the matter is that these are the seasons when they face terrible shortage of power. Over the years thousands of crores of rupees have been pumped into to revamp J&K’s power distribution infrastructure, the Union Territory continues to top in Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses, the highest in entire India. This means, Jammu and Kashmir is suffering a huge gap in the energy it puts into the system and the revenue (payment) it collects for this energy. While one would appeal to the consumers to use the electric power judiciously, the administration too has to gear up and come up with a long term plan to help UT to get rid of the chronic power crisis.
