Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 3: Sainik Colony resident held a demonstration against long and unscheduled power cuts and blocked the National Highway and shouted slogans against PDD.
In a statement issued here today the residents said that the road blockade led to inconvenience to passengers prompting police to divert the traffic from other side. The release said that protestors sat on Highway for eight hours demanding improvement in power supply.
The erratic power supply will likely worsen the situation in June and July if immediate steps were not taken to better the supply, said Gurmeet Kour Randhwa of Jan Sewa Sansthan. The low voltage has also added to the woes of people in general and old and infirm people in particular, she added.
She accused the PDD of turning deaf towards their long pending demands, Mrs Randhwa demanded up gradation of transformer to 10mva. The inmates of the colony including Brig (retd) Ajit Singh Saini, Bablu, Sukhdev Singh, Bunty, Parkash Jamwal, Mrs Salathia and others have made an appeal to local MLAs, Shabir Khan MOS for Power and PDD authorities to take steps in improving power supply and upgradation of transformer to 10mva, she added.
She said police pursued the people to call of demonstration and it also sought an assurance from Chief Engineer M&RE that the grievances of people due to unscheduled power cuts will be looked into. The CE has invited the delegation of the colony in her office chambers tomorrow for a meeting to sort out the issue.
Meanwhile former Union MOS and MLA Jammu West Assembly Segment, Prof Chaman Lal Gupta has voiced his great resentment over the power crisis in Jammu. He in a statement issued here today said it is intriguing that the situation has developed immediately after darbar move from Winter Capital to Summer Capital.
He demanded a probe that why such a serious situation was allowed to emerge in Jammu soon after Darbar move when the mercury has crossed 40 degrees and people are faced with scorching heat of Summer.
Prof Gupta said the scheduled and unscheduled power cuts have paralysed the whole life as the water supply also remains hampered due to power curtailments. The ruling alliance owes an explanation to people that why such long duration power cuts have been
enforced and why they failed to harness the vast hydel power potential which the state has despite spending thousands of crores in the name or execution of power projects.
He said the failure of Government is evident that they could not exploit even 10 percent of the total hydel power potential of over 20,000 mega watts of the state.
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