With rising mercury, power crisis worsens in Jammu

With summer season peaking by the day, the power crisis in Jammu region has also worsened as the gap between demand and supply has touched around 115 MW.

The gap further widens during peak hours like in the afternoon and in the evening, sources in the PDD informed. The officials however, said that the gap is not that much, “but there are other reasons responsible for the crisis, which mainly include outdated system and equipments”.

The scenario is forcing the PDD authorities to resort to ‘Distress Curtailments’ in order to save the system from getting seriously damaged and avoid losses that may run in crores.

“With increasing gap between demand and supply, and overloading of the system, we are left with no option but to resort to Distress Curtailments”, a senior official of the PDD informed Kashmir POST, while wishing not to be named.

It may be mentioned that most parts of the Jammu region are being subjected to both ‘Distress Curtailments’ as well as scheduled and unscheduled power cuts from the last couple of days.

While metered areas have been facing frequent Distress Curtailments, the unmetered areas are being subjected to both scheduled and unscheduled power cuts of more than 8 hours a day.

“The situation is only going to worsen with peaking of the summer season, particularly during the next more than one month”, highly placed sources in the PDD informed.

They informed, “In STD-I and STD-II divisions covering more than 75% areas of Jammu division, a mere 645MW of power is supplied as against the demand of 760MW”, and added, “This gap between demand and supply may further widen as the summer season peaks”.

Pertinently, STD-I and STD-II cover most of the areas of Jammu region barring Kathua, Kalakote, Udhampur and Doda. Sources said, “The situation is also almost similar in the areas which are not covered under STD-I and STD-II.

However, surprisingly, some officials in the PDD claimed that there is no shortage of power as such, while some others blamed it on the poor infrastructure for the present scenario.

“The power shortage is there but it is not like as is projected in the demand and supply gap. We have sufficient power to meet the demands”, a senior officer in the SL&DC said, while citing other reasons for the crisis.

Meanwhile, a senior official in the STD-II said, “The Grid Stations have not been upgraded due to which the department is forced to resort to Distress Curtailments and power cuts”.

He said, “The Grid Stations, Gladni, Miran Sahib, Gangyal and Canal Head have not been upgraded due to which the region faces crisis every subsequent season”.

The officer said, “Under R-APDRP, only distribution was covered while Systems and Operations (S&OP) has not been covered due to which the problem is there”.

Another senior official in STD-I said that the entire system needs upgrading to improve the scenario as the existing one is very old. “The panels, wires, capacitors and other equipments are very old and are therefore, unable to bear the load during peak season”, the officer said.

Executive Engineer, State Load and Dispatch Center (SL&DC), Ashok Gupta, when contacted said, “The gap between demand and supply is there but it is not alarming”.