Though the Friday afternoon high velocity winds followed by rain no doubt have brought some relief for the people from the rising temperatures but power supply situation in Jammu and Kashmir remains critical with protests commonly seen every day. Situation reminds of late 90s when power always remained elusive and protests so common every day. It looks throughout nothing has changed on the ground except false promises by political leaders and assurances to provide uninterrupted power supply. Lot of politics have been played over the centrally controlled, managed and operated hydro power projects in the state by the previous National Conference government to handover these to state and the present PDP-BJP coalition government too had promised to bring them under state government’s ambit. Will fund-strapped state government which depends upon central financial assistance for every project be able to manage these if they were handed over to it? Even if these are handed over to the state the prevailing problem of power cuts is not going to be solved. Neither this is a solution to the chronicle power situation. From distribution to consumption and revenue collection a large chunk of money and power is pilfered by people of all class from jhuggiwalas to kothiwalas in the city. Even some of the industrial units too are adopting this practice. Poor revenue collection and under-billing has been the bane of state which imports power from central pool. The potential and generation of electricity in the state is much above than what is the requirement. The generation capacity of the already executed power projects by the NHPC is much beyond the electricity needs of the state. The worst is the neglect shown by the subsequent governments towards this sector. When electricity, which is the main driver of development, is neglected, it consequently leads to backwardness and the prosperity of people also gets compromised. The same is the case with the State of Jammu and Kashmir. There has never been any sincere effort on part of the government to lay adequate stress on the power sector. Blame the government, blame the people or the system the power scenario in Jammu and Kashmir is not going to improve in near future.
