SRINAGAR: Blaming load shedding for unscheduled power cuts in valley, Chief Engineer Power development department (PDD) on Monday said the department will announce the new power curtailment schedule for winter in near future.
The chief engineer, PDD, Bashir Ahmad Khan said the department has observed the extra load of power consumption during the recent past and that the new schedule will be similar to that of the previous year.
“It is expected that the power supply in non-metered areas would remain suspended twice a week and in metered areas only once.”
Mr Khan further stated that the main reason for the power curtailment this winter is due to over load in the system.
“we have capacity of 1000MWs and the consumption is 1100, last year we have 1025 MWs consumption in valley,” he said, adding that due to the early arrival of the cold wave in the valley, consumption has reached far more than what was expected.
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The PDD chief further stated that the usage of heaters and extra gadgets has hiked the consumption graph and that the usage of ‘illegal’ power connections worsened the situation.
When asked why metered areas do not get the committed supply of electricity here, Mr Khan said people in the metered areas were involved in ‘Hooking’ due to which the power supply to these areas gets affected.
“We do not get as much revenue as is expected in the metered areas, people there bypass the meters.”
He further stated that the department cannot have the inspection squad in every corner of the valley and that people must understand that meters are for their own benefit.
