Woes of power supply are a recurring problem with our State. Successive Governments have left no stone unturned to reduce shortage and bring more and more people under power supply umbrella. However, full success has always eluded them. Actually, generation and supply of power have never been commensurate with the rate of population growth. New and unplanned habitats and localities have come up because people want a shelter over their heads. This is the reason why we landed into a miserable situation in regard to power supply and distribution. The transmission lines have become old and obsolete; lot of power is wasted owing to poor transmission and pilferage of power has become endemic.
State Governments in the past, after they were sworn in, generally expressed their great concern about the power woes in the State. Of course, they tried whatever they could and did make some contribution, but a foolproof and lasting solution to the problem was never in sight. The PDP-BJP Coalition Government has inherited the legacy of power crisis. It does not have a magic wand to set things right over night. Improvement of power generation and distribution system is a time and energy consuming affair. However, the way in which the Coalition Government intends to solve this problem maximally, is appreciable. The Union Government has floated the scheme with the purpose of bringing electricity to all such villages and habitats by 2020 as have remained un-electrified so far. It is called Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Vidhyutikaran Yojana and extends to all states including Jammu and Kashmir.
The Union Ministry of Power has asked the State Government for expeditious electrification of all left out villages and habitations by 2020. But the Union Ministry of Power has been more than sympathetic towards our State by extending many special favours with the cherished desire that by the stipulated date, all un-electrified villages and habitats are provided electricity. In the light of a survey conducted by PDD, the number of un-electrified villages and habitations is 97 and 11006 respectively in the entire State. The Department proposes to electrify 67 out of 97 un-electrified villages from Grid sources while as 30 villages located in Ladakh would be electrified through Non-Grid sources. The Union Ministry of Power has sanctioned 600 crore rupees for this project, which is one half of the total estimated expenditure on the project. However, the Union Ministry of Power is not averse to meeting the other half of the total expenditure if its share is properly spent and Utilization Certificates forwarded to the Centre. The condition of submission of UC is not exclusive to J&K. It is the established norm of the Central Government followed in almost all centrally sponsored schemes. The Centre has been very generous to the State and has agreed to waive the condition of minimum of 100 houses in a village of or a habitat. On the pleading of the State Government, the Union Minister of Power issued instructions to the concerned to waive the condition of 100 houses and electrify all villages and habitations even if the number of households is less than 100. However, the Central Government will insist on monitoring the progress.
We should be thankful to the Union Ministry of Power for extending generous support to the State which will end up in electrifying all houses and habitations in the State by 2020. This will be the culmination of Prime Minister Modi’s slogan of Power for All. The next step which we expect the Government to take could be of providing the entire State uninterrupted and 24×7 power supply round the year. The people want to get rid of power cuts, low voltage, erratic supply and recurring shut downs.
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