Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Dec 14: In order to minimize the unscheduled power and distress power cuts in Kashmir valley, Power Development Department has recently increased the power supply by nearly 100-150 Megawatts (MWs).
A top official of PDD said that the decision of supplying extra was taken in a recent review meeting of PDD and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
“Recently, some important decisions were taken by the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah regarding the electricity issues in Jammu and Kashmir. We have implemented those decisions to reduce the power cuts,” the official said.
He said, “KPDCL was receiving 1500 MWs of power and now it has been further increased to 1600-1650 MWs to address the unscheduled and distress power cuts. The same amount of power is already being supplied.”
About the status of installation of smart meters in Jammu and Kashmir, the official said that “Over 6.5 Lakh smart meters have already been installed.”
“There is a program to implement the smart meters in the rest of the places across Jammu and Kashmir. Work has been already tendered and the process is going on. Roughly, both the regions have equally smart metering,” he said.
Earlier, it was reported that KPDCL had requested for more power to reduce the issues of distress and unscheduled power cuts in Kashmir.
A top official had informed that the demand for power has increased significantly from the past two weeks and requires extra electricity to overcome it.
It had also said, “As of the, the unrestricted demand of electricity including the ongoing power curtailment schedule has reached 2600-2700 Megawatts. However, as of now we have only 1450 MW of power.”
