Amid Freezing Winter In Kashmir, Electricity Outages Cripple Life, Commercial Activities

The KPDCL, which distributes power to consumers in the valley has announced curtailments ranging from six to eight hours.

Srinagar: The power curtailment in the ongoing winter has severely disrupted normal life and commerce activities in the Kashmir valley in Jammu and Kashmir, despite the chief minister Omar Abdullah directing the power distribution companies of the government to minimise curtailment and schedule electricity supply.

From villages to towns and metered to non-metered areas, the power curtailment has crippled life and brought misery to people in the Valley. While the freezing cold has further exacerbated daily living as people have limited sources to keep themselves warm and use other means during darkness.

In the Valley, hundreds of small and medium scale factories established in government-run Industrial Estates require electricity to run but the power shortages disrupt their working and impact their earnings.

“Power curtailment severely impacts product output of our factories, besides the livelihood of workers in these units,” said Zaffar Farooq Salati, President of the Anantnag Industrial Estate Union.

The government has provided separate holiness to these factories but load-shedding disrupts this supply or sometimes electricity is diverted for domestic consumers which hits commercial units. “The diversion and curtailment compels us to use expensive generators, which increase our operational costs,” he said.

Those units which run in the commercial areas of Srinagar and other towns face daily losses as they don't have separate hotlines. “We run our units for merely three to four hours during the day time due to irregular power supply. Our earnings are disrupted during winter due to power curtailment,” Yaqoob Ahmad told ETV Bharat. Ahmad runs a electric repairing workshop in Maisuma market of the Srinagar city.

As per the Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (KPDLC), a government owned Discom, the Kashmir valley has more than 11 lakh registered consumers among them over two lakh are metered in Srinagar city and other towns.

The KPDCL curtails electricity in non-metered areas for eight hours while the cut is three to six hours in metered areas in Srinagar. The curtailment and supply is scheduled three hourly, which means consumers in non-metered get electricity for three hours followed by curtailment of three hours.

Chief Engineer of KDPCL Engineer Aaquib Sultana Waheed Deva said that the corporation resorts to curtailment due to tremendous demand of electricity due to cold and misuse of power beyond the sanctioned load by consumers.

“In metered areas which have less than 20 Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses, we supply electricity for 24 hours. Currently, 42 feeders in Srinagar, Anantnag and Sopore get 24*7 hours electricity,” Deva said.

Disturbed by the frequent complaints of power outages, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in his recent meeting with the Power Development officials said that unexpected and prolonged power cuts are difficult for people to tolerate.

Omar emphasized minimizing distress cuts so that the public begins to trust the schedule of power cuts notified by the department.

The power situation in Jammu and Kashmir during winter always remains grim. Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) which owns and operates 13 mini and mega hydro-power projects within a total generation capacity of 1197.4 Mega Watts. But this generation declines every winter due to less rain, snowfall and freezing of water resources.

As per JKSPDC officials, the present generation of these projects is very less. The generation has declined from 425 Mega Watts in October to 240 MW in November and now the average daily generation is merely 189.42 MW. The SPDC supplies 50 percent of its electricity to the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Department while sells 50 percent of its generation to outside private companies.

The Jammu and Kashmir government says that daily consumption of electricity during peak hours is 2600 MW. And now due to the crippled generation from its own projects, the KPDCL said it supplied more than 1550 MW of average power daily in the first ten days of December.

“The Ministry of Power has allocated 300 MW of firm power to Jammu and Kashmir to meet winter demand on 7th November 2024,” KPDCL said. This allocation follows after the meeting of chief minister Omar Abdullah met with the Union Power Minister in October in New Delhi.

KPDCL officials said that due the electricity shortages in Kashmir would not get addressed unless the consumers pay bills on time and those consumers who have unpaid bills from years clear their dues.

“Our 85 % consumers out of 11 lakh are domestic, 15 percent are commercial. Of the 85 percent domestic consumers, 5.50 lakh delay the payments of bills or have not paid bills,” a KPDCL official said.

This staggering payment cripples the financial strength of the corporation to purchase adequate electricity for consumers, he said.