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| With winter chill, Power crisis returns to Valley | | PDD warns of darker days ahead | | Saqib Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Nov 21: With winter beginning to get ferocious in the valley, the Power Development Department (PDD) and the consumers are at loggerheads over prolonged power cuts and payment of power bills.
While people are taking to the streets protesting against the erratic power cuts amid cold weather in the Valley, the Power Development Department (PDD) has blamed consumers for the unscheduled power cuts and warned of darker days ahead if people did not refrain from violating their agreement with the department.
For the past over a week, scores of protests have been held across the Valley against the unscheduled power cuts. The protestors accused the government for its failure in providing them uninterrupted power supply amid cold weather, saying that worst sufferers of frequent power cuts are students who are in the middle of their exams these days.
"We are being provided electricity for less than five-hours in a day. On contrary, we are being asked to pay more than the agreement," the residents of Sakidafar said.
The residents of Mandarbagh made similar complaints and accused the PDD for not adhering to the power curtailment schedule. The residents of Khanyar, Batamaloo, Karanagar, Mehjoor Nagar said they face immense inconveniences due to unscheduled power cuts and receive swollen electricity bills.
"Ours is a metered area but we receive electricity less than 12 hours in a day," said Shabir Ahmad, a resident of Nishat, alleging that the PDD had charged them more than the consumption of units.
They said the PDD had not informed them in advance about the hike in tariff and they were shocked to see swollen power bills. "We don't know why we were charged for electricity more than we used to pay earlier despite less consumption of units," the residents said. People from North and South Kashmir also complained of erratic power supply.
While as the PDD blames the people for unscheduled power cuts.
A senior official of the PDD said the department had not hiked any power tariff but were charging consumers as per their consumption. "There won't be any more power cuts but if people violate their agreements then there will be increase in power cuts in the days ahead," he said adding that people were themselves responsible for unscheduled power cuts as they consumed more units than the agreement. "If we won't resort to power cuts than entire electric system will collapse," he said. "Cheapest power was being provided to consumers in the State" he lamented. |
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