Power Pangs: Jammu residents turn to PM Modi

In an online petition, complain about long, frequent outages

Feeling ‘cheated’ by the ruling PDP-BJP government’s failure to ensure electricity supply during summer, residents of Jammu have sent a petition to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to prevail upon the state government to help people in Jammu and Kashmir.
The petition, being sent through an online forum ‘Change.com’, has called upon the Centre to take note of the ‘failure’ of Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh in ensuring uninterrupted power supply to the state.
In just one hour, the petition was signed by 300 people seeking intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to end the plight of people who were facing power cuts of 14 to 16 hours.
“The BJP and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh who is the Power Minister, have failed to provide us electricity. This has damaged the image of the state government led by the PDP-BJP alliance,” says the petition initiated by Arjun Gupta, a social activist.
Jammu region is facing huge electricity problems as the Power Development Department (PDD) has failed to ensure proper supply of electricity. Unscheduled cuts are making life of people miserable. A majority of BJP ministers and MLAs who were elected from Jammu region have shifted to the Valley.
“My parents are old and frail. They are suffering due to lack of electricity in this hot weather. Such long durations of power cuts are just inhuman,” said Dr Dipali Raina, who also signed the petition.
Though the PDD blames it on the excessive burden on the grid stations caused by the unregistered load, residents say the department should take steps to act against illegal connections and power theft.