Srinagar, Mar 17: Consumers in Valley, often accused of power theft, pay more tariff than their counterparts in Jammu! Yes it is true.
 They Valley consumers have paid nearly 40 percent more tariff to the Power Development Department than Jammuites.
 Greater Kashmir learnt from highly placed sources that the domestic consumers of Kashmir have paid Rs 78.78 crore for eleven months ended February 28, 2010. This excludes the revenue of Rs 3.32 crore yielded in Ladakh by the department for the same period.
 The Jammu consumers on the other hand have paid just Rs 48.04 crore, official sources said.
 Kashmir has some 80,000 more consumers in the domestic sector with 5.42 lakh registered connections. While Jammu has 4.62 lakh consumers. But the per consumer revenue generation is more from the Valley.
 “Average revenue realized per consumer/month in Jammu is Rs 94.41 against Rs 132 in Kashmir. This means a consumer in Kashmir has paid Rs 413 for 11 months more than what has been paid by his counterpart in Jammu,” said an official on phone from Civil Secretariat Jammu.
 Interestingly, the official pleading anonymity said the data was collected for the Legislative Assembly proceedings following general perception that Kashmir paid less on account of electricity.
 “But the figures reveal altogether a different story.”

Lastupdate on : Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 IST