Unscheduled power cuts amid sweltering heat irks people, power supplier for rational use of electricity

Jammu: As the mercury continues to soar, and frequent outages cause uproar across the region, the power supplier has asked people to make judicious use of electricity.

On Wednesday, Jammu registered second consecutive hottest day of the season as temperature breached 42 degrees Celsius. The weatherman has said that the temperature is likely to soar further for two more days before it begins to stabilise anytime after June 11.

Amid escalating temperature and pandemic circumstances keeping people homebound, the frequent and prolonged power outages have angered the local residents. Over the past few days uproar has been building up over the erratic power supply. In view of restrictions on assembly of people, a number of residents running campaigns on social media to invite the government’s attention.

Even as the supply-demand of gap of electricity in Jammu and Kashmir is not very drastic, local level snags are believed to be causing more outages. For the month of May, the total peak demand of 2812 MW in May, the power department in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh was only able to meet 2612 MW of power, with a shortage of 200 MW with 7.1 percent deficit.

Interestingly as per peak supply power consumption report, all other states and UTs of the northern region including Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Utter Pradesh and Uttarakhand were able to meet its peak demand and there was no shortfall of the power in any of these regions in the month of May.

“Current load demands of the Jammu province have escalated by more than 10 percent compared to the previous year’s figures,” the  Jammu and Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (JKPDCL) chairman said  while urging people to consumers to use power judiciously.

This year the current load demands of Jammu province have escalated by more than 10 percent compared to the previous year figures, which is a significant increase and this is being successfully catered to, only because of the ongoing system improvement programmes, Chairman added.

Sharma, who was flanked by corporation’s Managing Director Gurmeet Singh, said the consumers need to make judicious use of electricity in their households, offices and business centres by switching off all lights, gadgets and devices when not required.

He also encouraged the people to report cases of power pilferage or theft being resorted to by some unscrupulous elements of the society so that action can be taken against such persons and law abiding and honest citizens do not suffer.

The official said it has been noticed that a large number of consumers in every area of the Jammu province resort to power theft using hooks, thereby causing difficulties to the honest electricity consumers.

This culture must end for our own good, Sharma said, adding to enjoy quality power there is need to say no to power theft.

He also asked the people to stay vigilant and help in identifying any black sheep within JKPDCL and Power Development Department (PDD), who are in connivance with power thieves in the society.

He impressed upon the consumers to motivate everyone to make timely payments of their electricity bills, so that the JKPDCL-J&K PDD can maintain and improve its indispensable services.

Service without expenses cannot be expected because the entire power network demands recurring operation and maintenance costs Sharma said.

Singh listed several proactive measures initiated at various levels to strengthen the power distribution and transmission networks across the Jammu region, to ease out the electrical power-related grievances of the general public, especially during the extreme summers.

He said a massive up-gradation of the LT and HT distribution networks in all areas have been taken to strengthen the ultimate supply lines to end users.