KT NEWS SERVICE JAMMU, Dec 4: Entire Jammu city is once again experiencing blackouts.
Not that Jammu has not had it's share of unannounced power cuts but seems like this winter the situation will worsen.
Due to depletion of water level in the rivers, the Power Development Department is unable to supply their usual 18 hours power supply to the city.
Although the city did experience some rains but officials claim that water generated is not enough to meet even the basic demand of water supply.
For over a week now, most of the areas in Jammu are experiencing power cuts, unscheduled and unannounced.
For instance, in Gandhi Nagar power supply was almost nil for the entire day today and before that the area did not receive their share of eight-hour power supply.
The officials in the PDD department admitted to the fact and stated that inconvenience would persist for a few more days, maybe a month due to depleted water level.
They claim that not only Jammu, Kashmir too was suffering similar problems.
Apart from depleted water reserves, misuse of electricity and it's theft are also a few reasons that are causing electricity problems in the city.
B L Garu, Chief Engineer ( Maintenance), PDD revealed that during winters people have a habit of switching on their geysers, blowers and heaters 24 hours a day without realizing that the department has the minimal capacity of providing only 700-800 Mega Watts of electricity to the people.
He added that the said number is much lesser than the requirement, which is on an average, 1700 Mega Watts to the entire state.
"People misuse power and are ignorant to the fact that by doing so they would be creating problems for themselves.
If the department fails to provide uninterrupted power that is because the consumers do not know how to use it." He added that the department's initiative to install electronic meters would have solved the problem of electricity to a large extent but the job is not easy as the department is required to install 5 lakh electronic meters in the city.
When asked about the steps being taken to tackle the problem of power theft and it's misuse, he stated, "even if we fine people they will go back and steal power.
Unless the consumers do not realise the importance of `intelligent' power consumption, there can be no solution to the problem." If may be noted here that Jammu and Kashmir generates only 30-40 Mega Watts of power whereas the rest is imported from the neighbouring states.
With the minimal generation, the department is in need of 1700 Mega Watts, with 900 Mega Watts for Kashmir and 800 for Jammu.
Today only, 700-800 Mega Watts of power is available with the department, which the department claims is not enough to meet the increasing demands of the city and in winters, the situation is expected to worsen due to lack of water generation and increasing power demands.
It is worth mentioning here that the power curtailment in the city off late has become a cause of concern for the people.
In most of the developed colonies, power cuts were witnessed in the wee hours of night and early morning.
The PDD Department has not issued a new schedule for power curtailment thus making it difficult for people to adapt themselves to the change.
As for now it is not determined as to how long would these unscheduled power curtailments would last but going by the ground realities it would not be inappropriate to say that 'power trouble' is here to stay.
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