Srinagar: With each passing day the power crisis across Kashmir is deepening with frequent power cuts and no adherence to the curtailment schedule. The situation is witnessed in both metered as well as the unmetered areas.
With winter approaching and the weather forecast for a wet spell next week, there seems to be no hope of the power scenario getting any better in the coming days. “We will be able to stabilize the power supply, but cannot say the scenario will get better. The scenario will remain as it has been during winters in previous years,” the Chief Engineer of Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation (JKPDCL), Javed Yousuf Dar, told Kashmir Reader.
People from across Kashmir have been complaining about the “worst power crisis” for more than a fortnight now. The situation is the same in the summer capital Srinagar, and other major towns as well as rural areas of the Kashmir valley. This comes in the face of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s oft-repeated assurance of providing uninterrupted power supply to residents especially in metered areas.
“The power cuts are frequent and erratic. We have been told there is a curtailment schedule but we get 15-minute streaks of supply amid a several-hour-long curtailment of the electricity,” a resident of Anantnag town told Kashmir Reader, “And our area is supposed to be getting better power supply because we have meters installed here,”
Similarly, people living in Srinagar and the peripheries have the same stories to tell, for the power scenario has been no better in these areas. “Our area was recently metered and we were told that the power supply will improve. Besides, the officials said that any glitches will be resolved in hours,” a resident of the Bemina area in Srinagar told Kashmir Reader.
He said that the power supply has worsened and nobody can be found to complain in case there are any glitches. “Leave alone hours, recently they took more than two days to fix a minor glitch in our area. We did not have any power supply even while power was being supplied,” the resident said.
Woes are similar in North and central Kashmir, with people at certain places lodging their protests. In the Bijbehara area of Anantnag town, a civil society group has written to the Governor’s grievance cell regarding the “pathetic” power scenario in their area.
“We do not seek any special treatment, all we ask is a proper curtailment schedule that must be followed,” the group wrote in the letter.
Chief Engineer Dar said that there were certain factors that hindered streamlining of the power supply. “The first is that a dip in temperature is being responded to with an increase in the use of heating appliances. This is the usual shift from summer to winter and takes some time to streamline,” Dar said.
He added that JKPDCL was ensuring the cutting of tree branches in close vicinity of the supply lines, a process that requires power shutdowns in certain areas. “This helps in the upkeep of supply lines during snowfall,” he said.
Besides, he said, at least two transmission lines are being upgraded, a process that can only be carried out after paddy is harvested given that these lines pass mostly through paddy fields.
“All these factors add up to, kind of, disrupt the power supply. Things will ease in the coming days and hopefully, we can stabilize the power supply. Though the scenario will remain as it has been in the previous years,” Dar said.

Suhail A Shah