Kashmir’s power consumption grows nearly 8 percent in 1 year

Jammu: The Power consumption in Kashmir regiongrew by nearly 8 per cent to 64,588 Million units (BU) compared to a year agoshowing rapidly increasing demand for electricity and its peak load.
“Kashmir registered 64,588 million units of energy consumption, which is 7.98% higher than the previous year’s consumption of 59,796.19 million units,” an official said.
He added there is a 17.33% increase in the peak load consumption in Kashmir which indicates the rapidly increasing demand for electricity and its peak load over last year.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta reviewed the functioning of the Power Development Department.
In order to monitor unscheduled cuts, he directed officials for submission of daily reports related to the system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI) and system average interruption duration index (SAIDI); number of damaged transformers and time taken for replacements.
Chief Secretary directed the Department to rationally analyze the supply and demand of electricity in various regions of the Union territories and raise awareness on the feeder-wise authorized electricity drawal limit. Besides, the Department was also asked to undertake an extensive IEC campaign in both print and social media and garner public support for judicious use of electricity in collaboration with the Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies.
“The responsible use of electricity will minimize transformer damage on account of overloading besides reducing the unscheduled power cuts” Dr. Mehta said. He asked the Department to proactively manage the power load.
To make public grievance redressal prompt and efficient, especially in times of power failure, the Department was asked to publicize the helpline numbers established in this regard and issue SMS alerts and notifications to such consumers whose mobile numbers are available in the PDD database; on all scheduled and unscheduled power cuts.
Further, the Department was also asked to fix the responsibility of unauthorized connections/ power pilferage especially from feeders reporting electricity load above the permissible limit; on the concerned line staff and take disciplinary action for their inefficiency in taking corrective measures. The Divisional and District Administrations will also be involved in the enforcement efforts. It was further directed that responsibility be fixed for transformer outages.
The Chief Secretary directed regular surveillance and enforcement drives to disconnect illegal power connections so that consumers are able to get power without undue interruptions.