Four-and-a-half hour cuts in metered areas, eight hours in non-metered areas

Srinagar: After facing a shortage as well as erratic power supply for over a month now, the Jammu and Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (JKPDCL) issued a curtailment schedule for Srinagar on Monday.
It announced a four-and-a-half-hour curtailment for metered areas, whereas the non-metered areas are set to face a load shedding of eight hours daily in winters.
“The curtailment schedule will be effective from November 15,” a circular issued by the JKPDCL has said.
The circular was enclosed with a detailed, day-wise, curtailment schedule for areas falling within metered and non-metered areas. The metered areas are set to face a one-and-a-half-hour curtailment thrice every day, while the unmetered areas will face a two, three, and three-hour curtailment in 24 hours.
Whether the schedule will be followed in letter and spirit, however, remains to be seen.
The residents, Kashmir Reader talked to, remain apprehensive and do not see the power scenario getting any better.
“The administration is behaving as if this is for the first time a curtailment schedule had been issued, and as if this will be the end of our power woes. But we have seen curtailment schedules being issued and being flouted every year throughout the winters,” the residents said.
They added that the JKPDCL does not discriminate between metered and non-metered areas, barring in the notifications they issue. “We all face the worst power scenario in winters and that is always irrespective of metered or non-metered areas,” the locals said.
While a schedule has been issued in Srinagar, and whether it is followed in letter and spirit remains to be seen, the other parts of the valley are facing unprecedented power cuts.
In the South, central and northern parts of Kashmir the power scenario has gotten worse even as winter is officially almost a month away. “We have never seen such a pathetic power supply. We are getting 15-minute bouts of power supply between hours of curtailment, and no one is even talking about a curtailment schedule,” a resident of Bijbehara town in Anantnag district told Kashmir Reader.
Other parts of the valley have similar things to say. The recent uproar over an order banning heating devices, by Deputy Commissioner (DC) Ganderbal, is a glaring example of the acute power shortage Kashmir division is facing. The DC later amended the order.
The worst part is, the power scenario might not be getting any better if the Chief Engineer of the JKPDCL is to be believed. He recently told Kashmir Reader that the power supply will only get streamlined and will remain as it has been in the past few years now.
“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 on October 29.

Suhail A Shah