Assembly: clamour on power disorder

JAMMU: Legislative Assembly witnessed noisy scenes for the second consecutive day today on the issue of disruption of power supply in the Kashmir Valley following heavy snowfall. As soon as the House met today, the National Conference (NC) members led by Ali Mohammad Sagar alleged that the government has failed to restore electric supply in the Kashmir Valley that was hampered due to the heavy snowfall there.
The NC members disrupted the proceedings of the House and demanded the government to issue a statement in the House.
The Speaker of the House, Kavinder Gupta assured the opposition members that the Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, who also holds the power portfolio, will issue a statement in the House.
While speaking in the House, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said that the heavy snowfall in the Kashmir Valley disrupted the power supply but due to the efforts of the concerned officials, the supply was restored.
"The peak power demand in the Kashmir Valley is 1700 MW and the maximum which we can supply is 1180 MW, the remaining around 550 MW cannot be supplied due to infrastructural issues and the government is working to improve the infrastructure," he said.
He said that while the government was supplying over 1100 MW electricity in the Valley the total agreemented load was 700 MW.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that before the snowfall at January 6, the load was 1094 MW but after the heavy snowfall, the load crash to 190 MW, however, by noon 600 MW was restored.
He said by January 7 at 7 PM, 70 per cent of electricity supply was restored and 90 per cent was restored the following day.
The Deputy Chief Minister also said that 561 transformers suffered damages due to the unprecedented snowfall and they were repaired or replaced.
He said that due to the continuous snowfall which was going on today, some snags have developed in the distribution of power supply and the department was working to restore them.
Soon after the Deputy Chief Minister finished his statement, the opposition members were not satisfied and blamed the government for speaking lies in the House.
However, the Deputy Speaker Nazir Gurezi refused to listen to the opposition members stating that there was no scope of discussion after government gives its statement.
Amidst the din and the continuous pandemonium, the Speaker ordered the marshals to remove Congress member Asgar Ali Karbalai from the House.
As the member was being marshaled out, the opposition members of Congress and NC also staged a walkout from the House.