Kashmir’s domestic power consumers to pay 300 % more fee!

Govt tightens noose on revenue targets, withholds increments of PDD officials till agreements revised

People of flood-hit Kashmir, awaiting  rehabilitation package since September 2014, will soon have to pay for power consumption, on average at least 300 % more on monthly fee, as the government has decided to strictly revise the tariffs to meet the financial targets.

The Power Development Department (PDD) officials have been directed to meet the targets as till then their annual increments have been withheld.

Though similar directives have been issued for Jammu as well, officials said the agreement revision there would be compensated by the commercial sector, which take lion’s share of power consumption in that region.

“Unlike Jammu which has a huge commercial and industrial sector, here in Kashmir the backbone of revenue has always been domestic consumers,” said a PDD official.

For the current fiscal the state government has put revenue generation for Kashmir at Rs 1500. But officials said for the first quarter, which ended in June, the department fetched only Rs 163 crores, as against the expected Rs 367 crores.

Taking a serious note of PDD’s failure in meeting the targets, the government has issued formal orders directing officials to act or face music.

 “The position of revenue collection is quite dismissal as of now only 8% to 10 % of targets for 2015-16 has been achieved in respect of EMRE Wing Kashmir/Jammu. All Superintending Engineers/Executive Engineers and the Sub Divisional officers are showing very poor performance and have not improved revenue realization despite repeated instructructions issued from time to time,” reads a copy of the orders issued by Director Finance PDD vide order number PDD/II/AC/13/2015 dated July 27, 2015, a copy of which lies with us.

“As per the decision taken in the meeting under the Chairmanship of Honorable Deputy Chief Minister on 18th and 19th of May 2015, it was decided that both chief Engineers of EMR&E Wings shall not release the annual increment for 7/2015 of those officers/officials who are trailing in respect of achieving targets AT&C losses,” it adds.

“In this connection your are requested to issue instructions to Chief Engineer EMRE Wing Kashmir and Jammu not to release the annual increment of concerned officers and to those, who are trailing in achieving revenue targets and AT&C losses.”

PDD officials said they are left with no options but to hike the basic agreement of the domestic consumers by around 300 %. They said of the 8,00,000 odd power connections in the Valley, 7,00,000 were domestic. Other categories, mostly commercial amount to 1,00,000 consumers, a mere 20%.

“Eighty percent of the power consumption in Kashmir is from domestic consumers so they have to be our main targets,” said a senior official asking not to be identified.

Explaining his point, the official said average consumer in Kashmir pays Rs 350 per month which as per the revised targets has to grow manifold. “Under the revised agreement the average consumer will have to pay Rs 1000 per month. This is exclusive of most of the urban consumers who pay Rs 2000 per month,” he said.

A senior PDD official in the civil secretariat defended the government decision.

“Revenues have to go up come what may, people can’t have excuses all the times,” he said.