Jammu, Jan 22: Deputy Chief Minister, Dr Nirmal Singh on Monday asserted that the State Government is actively pursuing the transfer of power projects as it is an important part of the developmental agenda of the present coalition government.
Replying to separate written questions of legislators, M Y Tarigami, Vikar Rasool and Krishan Lal in the Legislative Assembly, the Deputy Chief Minister said that the Finance Minister, Dr Haseeb Drabu in his Power Budget in the year 2015-16, has clearly mentioned that the Government would actively pursue transfer of hydropower projects from NHPC and that year’s budget provided funds for meeting the operational and maintenance cost of such power projects to be transferred.
He said in March 2016, he along with Finance Minister met the Union Power Minister formally and impressed upon the Union Government the need for transfer of power projects of Dulhasti and Uri from NHPC to the State among other important issues of power sector. “Subsequently, this has been raised in various Power Ministers’ Conferences by me,” said the Dy Chief Minister.
Dr Nirmal Singh said that presently there is no agreement or MoU available with the State government on the terms and conditions under which Dul Hasti power Project was executed by NHPC. He said in the year 2011 a Cabinet Sub-committee was constituted to look into it and the Committee could not find any agreement or MoU. In this regard the Committee recommended constituting a Task Force of senior officers of the State to look into the circumstances leading to the misplacement of these records. Accordingly, a Task Force under the chairmanship of Administrative Secretary General Administration Department with three Additional Secretaries from PDD, GAD and Governor’s Secretariat was formed. As recorded by the Task Force, the relevant records were found missing from all the concerned offices. The task force concluded that the Cabinet decision was un-traceable and that there was not any possibility of its retrieval as the records were around four decades old and no handing over/taking over of records had taken place.
Listing the reasons forcing power cuts in peak Winters and summer seasons in Kashmir and Jammu, the Deputy
Chief Minister said against registered 3101 MW load , the demand should not exceed 1551 MW, but it is around 2950 MW (un-restricted) that reflecting that there exists huge unregistered load. He said the use of unauthorized load creates system constraints by way of overloading the system at Transmission, Sub-Transmission and at distribution levels, thereby causing further distress cuts in addition to the scheduled cuts. He said because JKPDD has sufficient capacity available at all transmission levels, viz-a-vis total load registered, it makes sufficient power available for its consumers as per their contract demand. He said various centrally sponsored schemes have been launched to meet the future load growth and to improve the power supply qualitatively and quantitatively.
Listing flagship schemes launched to overcome chronic problems at various levels, the Dy Chief Minister informed that Re-structured Accelerated Developmental Programme (R-APDRP) has been sanctioned at a cost of Rs 151.99 crore under part-A and Rs. 1665.27 crore under part-B to strengthen, upgrade and renovate sub-transmission and distribution network, adoption of IT application for meter reader, billing and energy accounting, in 30 identified towns of the state, including 17 of Kashmir division, 11 of Jammu division and 2 of Ladakh region. He said the revised PMRRP envisages achieving 24×7 power for all by 2019 and ensuring physical autonomy of J&K for a new era of development.
Elaborating further, he said DDUGJY has been launched with the objective for separation of agriculture and non-agriculture feeder, strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution, infrastructure in rural areas, including metering at distribution transformer, feeder and consumers end. He further informed that the scheme also included rural electrification for completion of left over RGGVY plans by subsuming these in DDUGJY. He said DPRs have been prepared for 21 districts, including 10 of Jammu division, 9 of Kashmir division and 2 of Ladakh region, for which GoI has approved an amount of Rs. 616.59 crore.
He said Centre has also launched Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) for strengthening sub-transmission and distribution network in 86 towns of the State at a cost of Rs 404.50 crore. Meanwhile, he said RGGY-II (RE-DDUGY) has been sanctioned at a cost of Rs. 101.28 crore for three districts of Ramban, Kishtwar and Doda.
Discover more from The Kashmir Monitor
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
