John Donne, legendary Metaphysical Poet says in one his famous poems, “The Canonization,” “For God’s Sake, Hold Your Tongue Let me Love.” I would rather put it “ Let me Speak.”
The valley of Kashmir is devouring through a nightmarish and lurid experience as valley is belligerently grappling with continuous acute power crisis at present. The consumers are mentally stunned due to the prolonged and unscheduled power cuts lasting for 14 hours, an unprecedented pervasiveness. The power crisis or power cuts are not confined to rural areas only but it is a regular feature in the capital city and so called smart city of Srinagar. The power crisis has bemused all and one feels as if we are of mortals of philistine Aegean people who existed around 12th century while the progress in terms of Electric Engineering, power generation/ transmissions, power plants has steered to brighter heights in the country and the world. I am reminded of 1980- 1990s during which I was pursuing my education at Degree College Sopore and I happened to be a Literature student and belonged to poor family background and therefore, needed a durable effort of studies to score good marks in the examination to complete graduation and therefore, manoeuvre to find a bit of lot to beat poor conditions at home. After, college hours, I used to find some solace in sports activities like cricket and football till dusk. But the night late hours were utilized for my studies and working of studies would be ignited by the contnious power supply hours during the night even if it was scarcely available during day hours as so many power projects had not come to the fore those times. The situation at present is extremely different and we are faced with long power cuts in the night even in the Smart City making the students and business institutions to suffer and consequently, pushing us egregiously and imperceptibly to blatant and uneasy life at our homes even in spring season not notwithstanding winter. As the valley is facing prolonged power cuts across Kashmir, even in spring when the electricity situation is usually better, the the authorities in power at the top level have directed the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Department to provide monthly updates on five key achievable points related to the power sector. One of the main concerns highlighted is the staggering revenue deficit of Rs 5000 crore faced by the PDD, which officials deem unsustainable. Post-August 2019, power corporations operating in J&K cannot sustain such huge recurring losses. Therefore, the administration has asked both power corporations of J&K to improve revenue realisation, Addressing the revenue deficit is a top priority, and the department has been instructed to focus on various measures to boost revenue collection. These include implementing a power amnesty scheme, conducting continuous revenue realisation drives to compel consumers to pay outstanding dues, and holding division and sub-division-wise meetings to improve revenue collection. Another key actionable point is making serious efforts to curb power losses through inspections, disconnections, and filing FIRs for power theft. The imposition of heavy penalties on power thieves has been also emphasised. In order to embark upon the issue of non-metered consumers, the department has been directed to ensure the immediate installation of available conventional meters in non-metered areas, with a focus on locations where LT-AB cable has been laid but not charged yet. Implementation of the Smart Metering Project under RDSS, which shall cover the remaining 6.95 lakh consumers in Kashmir, load revision of the sanctioned load of non-metered consumers as per actual consumption in a calibrated manner. The department has also been instructed to expedite the pre-paid conversion of Smart Meter consumers under Phase-II of the Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP) and bring down losses on feeders where Smart Meters have been installed, with a focus on billing efficiency.. Furthermore, the authorities have emphasised the need to improve the billing and collection efficiency of all feeders, with Feeder Managers and their support teams being directly responsible for monitoring feeder-wise recovery. Lastly, the department has been directed to ensure energy auditing and maintain a balance between input and billed energy to improve overall revenue realisation.
“The residents are mentally distressed over the prolonged power cuts, which have become a regular occurrence during the spring season, typically a period of relative respite from energy woes. FOR GODS SAKE, achieve the key points immediately, In case the delay to achieve the key targets is not accomplished, it may anguish the mortals of this land and make their life more miserable. Let the Govt work with an open heart to ease out the problems and riddles of its people and provide the basic and main facility of electricity at an earliest. The Delay in working out the solution to power crisis may exasperate and turn pushy and podium the predicament from the Alps to the Everest”.
As the news about power achievable key points surfaced in the electronic and print media, I gleefully read out, searching any point where the department of PDD is directed to regulate uninterrupted power supply within any stipulated time but surprisingly, it did not exist in the key achievable points or targets and left me guessing what would happen to us and should we be ready to combat with murkier and more bleak days and life in summer also without power. The question is who shall expedite to achieve these key targets. Surely, it is authority in power in the stratum and power department who have to accomplish the task given to. Let them achieve these targets in a time bound manner and relive us from the plight. The political parties in Jammu and Kashmir have been wooing voters for the Lok Sabha election—Anantnag-Rajouri, Srinagar and Baramulla constituencies in Kashmir, who are enjoying uninterrupted power supply under VIP Qouta and while as the common man is facing a severe power crisis that has thrown normal life out of gear and plunging the Valley into darkness. The worst affected are patients who rely on home oxygen supply for respiratory illnesses. Even though the Power Department brags about opulence and improvement in supply, but the basic facility of electricity is nowhere; this is impacting our daily lives, leaving our homes and businesses powerless. Despite, having huge water resources and generation capacity, electricity produced, we are in more dark hours. Even the areas designated by the KPDCL to receive round-the-clock power supply have not been spared. Over 40 feeders in these areas have been subjected to outages ranging from 5 to 6 hours per day, leaving residents and businesses reeling. The crisis has put the KPDCL in an embarrassing situation over its failure to procure additional power despite the corporation’s efforts to increase revenue and implement smart metering. The revenue as per sources has upped the revenue, and smart metering is going on, but the required supply is not still available. As a result, the ire of the people, who are rightfully aggrieved because, in areas where there is 100 percent cabling and no losses, they are paying their bills, but still load shedding is imposed on those areas. The unprecedented power crisis is affecting daily life and economic activities across the Valley, with the student community, businesses and essential services bearing the brunt of the outages. The residents are mentally distressed over the prolonged power cuts, which have become a regular occurrence during the spring season, typically a period of relative respite from energy woes. FOR GODS SAKE, achieve the key points immediately, In case the delay to achieve the key targets is not accomplished, it may anguish the mortals of this land and make their life more miserable. Let the Govt work with an open heart to ease out the problems and riddles of its people and provide the basic and main facility of electricity at an earliest. The Delay in working out the solution to power crisis may exasperate and turn pushy and podium the predicament from the Alps to the Everest.
(The author is a veteran academician of Jammu & Kashmir. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”.)
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