Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Jan 5: Kashmir valley is reeling under worst power crisis of the season at a time when temperatures are subzero across the Valley and Power Development Department (PDD) is resorting to distress power cuts.
According to officials of the PDD, Kashmir valley needs 1400 MWs of power at this time of the year but it has only 900 MWs at its disposal and is short of 500 MWs.
The local generation from State’s two own power houses of Lower Jhelum and Upper Sind I and II is 30 MWs and 20 MWs respectively. The Uri-I is generating 200 MWs only due to low discharge.
The PDD officials said that the State is importing 850 MWs of power from Northern grid to meet the power needs of Kashmir valley at this time of the year.
As per the power curtailment schedule, the non-metered areas have 58 hours of weekly power cuts. This includes 8 hours power cut in the evening during a week, 8 hours weekly night cut, 35 hours of weekly day cut and seven hours of weekly morning cut.
In metered areas of the Valley there are 21 hours of weekly power cut including 7 hours of evening, 7 hours of morning and 7 hours of weekly night cuts.
A PDD official said that by following the curtailment schedule, PDD is short of 100 MWs and it resorts to distress cuts. “There are 8 hours of distress power cuts in non-metered and 4 hours in metered areas”, he said.
However, residents said there are more distress power cuts in Kashmir valley and people shiver in sub-zero temperatures. “We are facing distress cuts in Rajbagh which is heart of Srinagar. What will be the fate of the village and remote areas?” says Riyaz Ahmad of Rajbagh.
Javed Ahmad of Narbal in Budgam said that they face more distress cuts. “We face over 100 hours weekly power cuts”, he added.
A PDD official blamed people for the power crisis saying that the people resort to power thefts that leads to power crisis. He said that as per demand we have sufficient power supply for this time of the year but power thefts lead to crisis.
Residents of majority of city areas said that large number of residents in metered areas resort to power thefts with the active connivance of the PDD officials. “PDD officials collect Rs 100-Rs 200 to PDD every month in our locality to allow the power thefts”, says Javed Ahmad of Omarabad HMT in Srinagar.
The PDD Chief Engineer, Bashir Ahmad Khan, didn’t respond to the repeated phone calls for his comments.
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