It is surprising that despite disturbing shortage of electric power, the State administration is not showing any seriousness in making use of the option offered to the State to overcome this shortage. Why is the Government become so insensitive to critical matters knowing that these matters are directly concerning the general public? Power and water are among essential commodities and their supply to the people should never cease. But how the Government mishandles supply of electric power is to be understood from the sordid story of how for last four years the State Government is sitting on the scheme of utilizing huge coal block allocated by the Union Coal Ministry.
On the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee and under auction by competitive bidding coal block having geological reserve of 130 and 266 million tonnes respectively was allocated to J&K State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) by exploration jointly with National Thermal Power Corporation Limited keeping in view lack of experience of JKSPDC and expertise of NTPC in this particular field. Much hype was created over this decision of Union Government as it was for the first time in the history of J&K that any coal block was allocated to State’s key agency in the power sector. The J&K State Power Development Corporation engaged M/s SBICAPS as consultants to carry out the viability and sensitivity analysis of various options and accordingly advise on the way forward essentially with regard to location of the end use plant.
Even when the news of a coal block having been allotted to the State was made public, there was joy writ large on the face of the people and those of the top functionaries who took it a major step in overcoming power crisis in the State as the production from the thermal sources was estimated to be around 668 megawatts of power.
Against these expectations, the State Government has failed to initiate first step towards obtaining benefit from allocation of a coal field. Till date the JV has not been signed between JKSPDC and NTPC not to speak of any other spade work undertaken in this direction.
It is indeed a sordid state of affairs. The State is incurring huge losses owing to inordinate delay in getting the initial step via, signing of the Joint Venture done.
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