Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Dec 20 : With the onset of Chilay-Kalan—the 40 harshest winter days, people of many areas in Kashmir continue to face the unscheduled outages in both ‘metered and non-metered’ locales.
The electricity consumers of different areas informed the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that the Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (KPDCL) was unable to cater the least expected services to them or were ‘making concocted promises’ which the DISCOM couldn’t deliver.
One of the locals of Kani Mazar in Downtown, Furqan Farooq said that the area is facing long durational power cuts.
Although the Power Development Department (PDD) has installed smart meters in our area, we continue to face unscheduled power outages. It seems that KPDCL has either failed to deliver the promised electricity as per the ongoing curtailment schedule or is making concocted promises to its consumers which the DISCOM is unable to cater.”
He said, “In the bone chilling winters, we are being forced to use frosty water.”
Another local of Fateh Kadal, Imtiyaz Mir said, “Despite facing the extra power curtailment, the power voltage is extremely low during the peak hours.”
“This year, the power curtailment has increased further in comparison to the previous years,” Mir said, adding that, “We have a COPD patient at home and ironically the unscheduled power cuts and the low voltage are putting their lives at risk.”
In the meantime, consumers of different areas of south Kashmir’s Pulwama and Shopian districts narrated the same ordeal—saying, “PDD has miserably failed to provide any sort of relief to the electricity consumers.”
One of the locals in Pulwama said, “Kashmir is reeling under intense cold for a month now and the authorities seem to least bothered about them in providing any sort of relief with regard to the unscheduled power cuts.”
The residents of different places in north Kashmir and central Kashmir also expressed resentments against the unscheduled outages and extra curtailments.
Top officials of PDD informed KNO that, “Power demand is gradually increasing because of the intense cold weather conditions.”
“If there are any areas that are facing unscheduled power outages and distress cuts, we will work on streamlining the issue,” the official said.
The official further said, “Recently, we have increased the power supply by 100 to 150 Megawatts (MWs). Besides, we are also working on minimizing the AT&C losses so that our consumers will get uninterrupted power supply as per the schedule program.”
Pertinently, KNO earlier this week reported that in order to minimize the unscheduled power and distress power cuts in Kashmir valley, the Power Development Department has recently increased the power supply by nearly 100-150 MWs.
“Recently, some important decisions were taken by the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah regarding the electricity issues in Jammu and Kashmir. We have implemented those decisions to reduce the power cuts,” the official had said.
He said, “KPDCL was receiving 1500 MWs of power and now it has been further increased to 1600-1650 MWs to address the unscheduled and distress power cuts. The same amount of power is already being supplied.”—(KNO)
