J&K Power Dept borrowed Rs 30,000 Cr against Rs 9,410 Cr revenue in last 3 yrs

19 October 2023

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SRINAGAR, OCT 18: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today emphasized that quality power supply during winter months can be ensured only if there is a proper demand side management and proper plan should be formulated by the Department for the purpose. He made these remarks while holding reviewing functioning of Power Development Department.

The meeting was attended by the Principal Secretary, PDD; MD, KPDCL/JPDCL; Chief Engineers of all the Corporations besides other concerned officers.

The Chief Secretary impressed upon the officers to ensure that the availability of power during winter months is as per schedule. He maintained that there is additional demand during the extreme cold weather and the Department needs to brace itself to meet the challenge.

Dr Mehta enjoined upon them to enhance the enforcement mechanism by constituting feeder wise surveillance teams. He advised them to start media campaign to raise awareness about the judicious use of electricity and government’s efforts to provide them subsidized power. He asked for involving district administration for strict enforcement of ban on use and sale of crude gadgets in their respective areas.

He asked them to publish the Do’s & Don’ts for general public to sensitize them about the harmful effects of using crude heating or cooking gadgets. He called for prioritizing the supply of electricity as per the feeder wise AT&C losses. He told them to saturate the feeders with smart meters having mixed gadgets currently.

Dr Mehta also stressed on giving feeder wise energy and revenue targets to the field functionaries for improved demand side management. He directed for bringing down the overall AT&C losses especially in smart metered areas to 10% as per the established norms.

While taking review of the financial health of the associated corporations, the Chief Secretary urged the Department to carryout study of the power purchase mechanism of all the States/UTs of the country. He directed for making a comparison chart about the purchase and supply of energy in each State so that the UT too could think about bringing more efficiency into the system.
In his presentation the Principal Secretary, PDD, H.Rajesh Prasad informed the meeting that the Department has huge gap between total cost of purchase of power and revenue realization.

He further added that the Department has taken several reforms to reduce its losses besides making efforts to increase the revenue realization. These includes installation of smart meters, cabling of LT network and taking up other loss reduction works. It was said that till date more than 5 lakh smart meters have been installed in the UT with 15 lakh to be installed more.
Moreover it was given out that to meet the demand of consumers the government is taking both short and long term measures. These include bilateral arrangement/banking with Government of UP for 500 MW energy and additional allocation of 1000 MW firm power is also being explored.

As for taking the long term measures it was informed that Power Purchase Agreements for 1600 MW solar power and 1245 MW hydro power has been done with different generation companies across the country for providing quality power to our consumers in the UT.