Goodbye power outages: Govt commissions Alasteng, Bandipora grid stations after 10 years

Srinagar, Feb 20:  Power outages will soon be a thing of past as Jammu and Kashmir government has commissioned much-awaited 320MVA Alasteng and 50 MVA Bandipora grid stations to receive additional electricity from the central grids.

Installed capacity of Kashmir has now reached 1600 MVA mark against the peak demand of 2100 MVA. 

Chief Engineer, PDD (Transmission) Hashmat Yousuf Qazi told The Kashmir Monitor that the Valley will now get 25 per cent additional electricity from the central grids.

“For the last one week, we are providing additional power to consumers. There are less outages now. The overall requirement of power supply in Kashmir is 2100 MVA, which too will be covered this year,” he said.

For the last few years, Centre has been allotting additional electricity to Jammu and Kashmir to overcome power crisis during winters.  In 2018, Centre allocated additional 700 MWs of power to Jammu and Kashmir in view of higher demand in winters.

Qazi said 160 MVA Lassipora and 160 MVA Batpora grid stations too will be commissioned soon to bridge the supply gap.

“Lassipora station will be commissioned in August this year. Batpora will be made functional in March next year. Then there are other grid stations in pipeline. These include 160-320MVA Delina grid station, 132 KV Khanyar and 132 KV Tengpora and Khanmoh50-100MVA,” he said.

Qazi said the department is now focusing on stopping power thefts and conserving energy. “People use more electricity than load agreement particularly during winter. While the gap between supply and demand will be bridged, people will have to use power judiciously. Infrastructure development alone cannot help, consumers too need to take utmost care of the resources,” he said.

Another official of the PDD said under Prime Minister’s Development Package, many new power projects are coming up.“The transmission and distribution system is being upgraded. Bottlenecks are being identified to ensure uninterrupted power supply during peak months,” he said.