SRINAGAR: Homemaker Syeda Begum was worried about how to perform Shab at home sans electricity. She insisted one of her sons pray at home as she was not comfortable staying alone. To her surprise, there was no load shedding on Shab-e-Qadr and she enjoyed praying at home.
Syeda is not an isolated case. The power situation has considerably improved since the Centre allocated 207 MW of additional electricity to J&K.
“Power outages were giving us jitters. Our inverters too had conked off. It was also affecting our water supply. Now, there is considerable improvement in the electricity supply. Load shedding has decreased. We live in the metered area and there is an improvement,” said Syeda.
Principal Secretary to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Niteshwar Kumar said the power scenario will further improve in the coming days. “I want to thank the union government for providing us additional 207 MW of power, which will help in improving the situation,” he said.
Pertinently, the union government has allocated additional power from the unallocated quota of Central Generating Stations of the Northern Region Pool to Jammu and Kashmir.
Between April 1 and 25, PDD allocated an additional Rs.52 Crore to purchase electricity from the open market, also known as Energy Exchange. However, due to the increased number of bidding, electricity worth only Rs.10.41 Crore could only be supplied to J&K.
Against the demand of 2400 MW, Jammu and Kashmir is supplying 2061 MW. Power Development Department is also ensuring optimal output from available power sources.
It is pertinent to mention that thermal plants account for 70% of the country’s power generation capacity. Thermal and Hydropower contribute 50%-50% to meeting the demand of J&K. Hydropower plants operate at reduced capacity during March and April due to the accumulation of snow which starts melting in May.
Owing to the early onset of summer and an unprecedented heatwave in March and April, Power Development Department decided to place a maximum bid at the energy exchange to meet the shortfall amidst the surging power demand.
