STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Jammu and Kashmir Assembly was on Saturday rocked by the protests from Opposition over alleged power crisis and unscheduled power cuts in Kashmir and Ladakh regions and later staged a walkout from the House over government’s “unsatisfactory” reply.
Ali Mohammad Sagar of National Conference (NC) raised the issue of alleged power crisis during the extreme winter conditions in Kashmir Valley and alleged that the government has failed to provide uninterrupted power supply.
He was joined by Congress Legislative Party leader Nawang Rigzin Jora and hit out at the government for failing to gear up its administration to deal with the situation. All the Opposition members stood up from their seats and protested over the issue and maintained that government has “failed” to provide uninterrupted power supply to the people of Kashmir and Ladakh regions in this season of extreme winter conditions.
Intervening the matter, Minister of State for Power, Syed Farooq Ahmed Andrabi said there are power cuts and it is due to a large gap between the demand and the supply of power.
The Opposition members then resorted to uproar and noisy scenes protesting against the “unsatisfactory” reply and walked to the entry of the Well of the House.
However, Parliamentary Affairs minister Abdul Rehman Veeri intervened by saying the concern of these members is genuine and administration has been directed to look into the problems of unscheduled power cuts.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the government’s reply , opposition members staged a walkout from the House.
Later Jora told reporters that the government was “ill-prepared” to deal with the situation following heavy snowfall which has created more problems for the people due to unscheduled power cuts in Ladakh and Kashmir regions.
They have “totally failed” to provide uninterrupted power supply to the people in the said regions in these extreme cold conditions, he said, adding the government should ensure uninterrupted power supply to the people.
Legislators Vikar Rasool Wani, Usman Abdul Majid, Javed Ahmad Rana, Asgar Ali Karbalie, Choudhary Sukhnandan Kumar, Aijaz Ahmad Mir, Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen, Abdul Rashid Dar, Javid Hassan Baig and Sheikh Ishfaq Jabar also raised the issue of unscheduled power cuts in their respective constituencies and urged the government to streamline the electricity supply.
Earlier, the Minister in-charge Power Department on Saturday informed the House that in the last two years over 24,000 transformers have been damaged /burnt and an amount of Rs 66.61 crore have been spent on repairing them.
Out of 24,334 transformers 13,409 were damaged in Kashmir, 10685 in Jammu and 240 in Ladakh region.
Replying to a question, the Minister said that major cause of damage of these transformers is excessive load by consumers. The department has been making efforts to check excess/unauthorized use of load and power theft by the consumers as the enforcement squads are conducting frequent inspections, the Minister added.
Giving details of the transformers installed during the last two years, the Minister said that 2,055 transformers were installed across the State including 849 in Kashmir, 1,171 in Jammu and 35 in Ladakh.
Regarding the shortage of power supply in the State, and measures initiated to improve it, the Minister said that the Government is making concerted efforts to improve the overall power scenario in the State for which several long term measures have been taken.
Listing the reasons for frequent power cuts, especially during the winters in Kashmir and summers in Jammu, the Minister said that there is a large gap between the total unrestricted load demand of the consumers and the actual agreement load which is being managed by the department. The indiscriminate use of gadgets, especially during the peak hours in violation of agreed load leads to the breakdown of system with the result the department is constrained to impose cuts. The improvement in power supply is based on the load management, accountability and compliance from the consumers, said the Minister.
Responding to another query, the Minister informed that 42 cases of theft of 25 KVA transformers were reported in Anantnag district during 2011, for which the FIRs stand lodged with the concerned Police Stations.
