Srinagar, May 5: With the state government having failed to tide over the losses incurred in power sector due to the piling energy deficit over the years, the state power ministry is set to prolong the dark periods in future by resorting to long power cuts.
 Officials say though the power generated, purchased and sold has gradually increased, the demand for power is growing very fast. They said the department was resorting to power cuts in the state to bridge the widening gap between demand and supply. The power cuts are of the order of six hours in summer and 10 hours in winter.
 But even after the power curtailment, the restricted demand was around 10238.00 MUs in 2009-10 which necessitated more power purchase.
 The department has entered into arrangement with Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Power Trading Corporation and Northern Grid for power purchase.
 The officials concede that the total availability of power generated from ‘own sources’ is insufficient and free power in the shape of royalty from NHPC projects also accounts for very little.
 “Both of these contributed just 28.87 percent of the total restricted electricity requirement and the rest 71.13 percent was purchased from other sources during 2008-09,” an official said.
 He said the purchased partition doesn’t fulfill the complete requirements necessitating power cuts ranging from six to 10 hours per day. “Both purchased and self-generated power will fulfill just around 67 percent of total requirement leaving the state’s power status in doldrums,” he added.
 The department has projected unrestricted demand at 2000 MWs in summer and 2247 MWs in winter while as restricted demand has been put at 1288 MWs during summer and 1434 MWs during winter. However availability during summer of 2009-10 from state’s own projects and Central Power Sector Units is somewhere between 900 MWs for summer. The deficit would be 388 MWs.
 Besides attributing dismal power scenario to lack of initiatives by the Government in generating power in state sector, the officials say the chaos in the revenue realization adds to the problem.
 Even though there has been steady increase in the revenue realization since 2002-03, the department has failed to meet the targets. The revenue realization in 2008-09 was at Rs 628.00 crores with valley paying most in domestic category. But the gap is wide as the target was Rs 1105 crores.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 5 May 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 5 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT
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