Sadaf Khursheed
Srinagar, Jan 22 (KNB): With the coming of winters Kashmiri people are struck with the worst crises of the year “power crises” every year despite mammoth and significant promises by the successive governments and at the time of elections to resolve these crises, they still remain one of the biggest failures of the governments who maintain a legacy in the worst power cuts.
The whole valley nowadays is facing the worst power crises, with the Srinagar capital facing the curtailment up to Ten hours and the villages don’t see the electricity for days and this has become the daily routine here.
However the officials of the power department are playing a blame game as according to one of the officials of PDD ,the power thefts by the consumers and using more electricity than the agreement is the cause that more electricity is used which causes the load. And winters being around, people use heating devices which again cause the problem.
Energy demand in the valley has increased considerably in past years at an annual rate of 6 to 7 percent according to the power department which will again grow in the coming years but the governments and the department is not upgraded and developed enough to face the increase.
“Living in a town that also in the metered area, we hardly see any electricity, so the situation in the villages can be understood”, said a local.
While the state has the rich source of running water which runs the Hydropower projects in the valley and can be enough to provide 24 hour power supply to the valley but only 13% of the electricity produced by these power projects is actually given to the state and the rest Jammu and Kashmir has to buy from the northern grid that too on high rates which causes one more burden on the state exchequer.
In fact one of the agenda of the PDP-BJP alliance was the return of the two power projects Dul Hasti (390 MW) and Uri-II (290 MW) but three years down the lane nothing concrete has been done in this regard and the successive governments over the years have talked to the center a lot over this issue to at least share the power on 50 -50 basis.
While talking to Kashmir News Bureau over phone Shahnaz Goni, Chief Engineer PDD said that “ I am doing every possible thing to end these crises in the valley and can distribute only what I get.” (KNB)