Curtailment schedule will be out by next Sunday: PDD
Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Nov 3: Even as the Power Development Department (PDD) has not come up with any power schedule so far, the Kashmir Valley has started experiencing unscheduled power cuts with the onset of the winter season.
Residents across the Valley districts are complaining about undue and unscheduled power cuts in their areas and are stating that they have to face hardships due to the erratic power supply.
Not to speak of other districts, the district Srinagar is also experiencing erratic power supply in metered as well as in non-metered areas, giving residents a tough time.
“There is no set schedule being followed in Srinagar; they are resorting to power cuts as per their will. They have not notified anything so far due to which it has become difficult,” a resident from Srinagar said.
The people from Anantnag, Ganderbal, Baramulla, Budgam, and Pulwama also said that regular and long power cuts have become the order of the day in their respective areas.
The residents said if the situation is like this when the winter has not even begun yet, how it is going to be in the harsh winters that Kashmir experiences.
“This is just the beginning of the winter season and we are facing immense hardships, particularly the elderly. Harsh winters in Kashmir are nothing new, but it appears that we are going to face a lot this season,” Tanveer Ahmad, a resident of Srinagar told Excelsior.
Aijaz Ahmad, a resident of Dharmuna village in district Budgam said: “There is no electricity during the day and in the evening it plays hide and seek. We have never experienced such a bad power situation so far.”
However, on the other side, the PDD said that they are already giving out double the power against the agreement load in Kashmir with regard to the domestic use and that there is a need for public cooperation to mitigate the crisis.
“There is a need for public cooperation as we are giving around 1450 MWs of load against the agreement load of around 700 MWs for domestic use, which means that we are already pumping in double the power,” Chief Engineer, PDD Kashmir Aijaz Dar told Excelsior.
He also said that the department is working on framing a power schedule which should be out by next Sunday or Monday.
He said that the schedule will be implemented for two days on a trial basis. “We are working on forming the power schedule once that’s done then we will implement it for two days on a trial basis by next Sunday we will have a power schedule which will be made public,” he said.
Regarding frequent power shutdowns that are usually longer, he said that such shutdown, whenever needed are notified as we are strengthening the infrastructure.
“We are as of now, strengthening our transmission lines and grid stations. In coming days, there will be 2-3 more such notified shutdowns after that we will not allow any such thing to happen,” he said.
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