AARYAN SHARMA
JAMMU: Jammuites beware! If you are using more than the declared load to enjoy cool climes of your bed room to beat the heat, chances are that you may land yourself in trouble by even losing the luxury of whatever little power supply is being made by defunct Power Development Department.
Without realising the hardships being faced by the consumers, especially in the wake of sizzling mercury, while laying insulated cables, necessitating power cuts, the PDD, to its wisdom, thought it prudent to derive sadistic pleasure by making people to suffer.
Ever since the augmentation work is being carried out under R-APDRP in different parts of the city with an aim to bring down the T&D losses and strengthening of distribution network the consumers are facing tough time. In various city areas, load cuts up to 20 hours have been reported, causing disenchantment among the people.
With rising mercury levels, PDD has been flooded with complaints of frequent tripping and in majority of cases burning of 32 Ampere MCB’s. But instead of coming to the aid of hapless consumers, the department has been simply passing on the buck.
On Friday, when a LT distribution box, fixed on the electric pole caught fire in posh Gandhi Nagar area, the local residents approached nearby PDD office and sought early restoration of power supply. Much to their chagrin, the PDD authorities simply looked other way and left power consumers high and dry. Since random fire had led to power break down in the area, the power hungry consumers remained stranded for more than 36 hours. If in the days to come such incidents would rise, the PDD cannot afford to stay away and wash its hands. The entire PDD machinery will have to share the blame for the mess they have created for the power consumers.
The incident is not an isolated one as more and more consumers across Jammu have been faced with similar difficulties on account of faulty planning and poor implementation of the project.
According to official sources, each LT distribution box is fitted with nine 32 Ampere MCBs which are used to provide power connection to six households with maximum declared load of 5 KWs.
Three MCBs are kept spare to meet technical requirements in case of any snag in the line.
Since most of the houses in residential areas are fitted with atleast 2-3 air conditioners in addition to general load of electric appliances these MCBs are getting overworked and heated up leading to frequent break downs and in some cases the LT distribution boxes are also catching fire.
The PDD officials claimed that till the time the local consumers would stick to consuming only declared load they will not face any major issue but in case of discrepancy they are bound to face problems and even frequent break downs. Under the project of RAPDRP which is being executed more than 2 lakh meters were required to be installed by March 2017 in both the capital cities.
The department would start energy auditing only after the completion of cabling work, presently underway across different locations in the city.
As the summer season is peaking and number of complaints remain unattended, the government may have to face people ire in the comming days.