New Delhi, Oct 30: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Saturday said that Jammu and Kashmir has suffered heavily as a result of discriminatory provisions enshrined in the Indus Water Treaty.
“The State has lost its right of impounding and optimally utilizing the waters of Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers to take care of the seasonal variations in power demand,” Omar said while addressing a meeting of Group of Power Ministers from different states here. Union Minister of Power, Sushil Kumar Shinde was present in the meeting.
Omar said due to the restrictions imposed by IWT, the State could not create storage facilities to take care of its increased requirements of energy during winter months. He said if such facility was available to the state, it would not have been forced to buy costly power under short-term arrangements.
The Chief Minister said J&K has not been compensated for IWT losses despite the agreement in principle to do so reiterated on several occasions.
Abdullah called for a symbiotic relationship between the State and the Centre to ensure that additional resources are made available to the state and the central sectors to optimally utilize precious water resources which are otherwise going waste.
“The expeditious harnessing of hydel power potential of 20,000 MW in J&K will not only make the state self-reliant in energy sector, but will also help it to meet the power requirement of the entire country,” he said and added that despite huge hydel potential, J&K continues to face acute shortage of energy, particularly in winter, when power curtailment schedules stretching up to 10 hours have to be implemented.
Flagging the issue of reduction in transmission and distribution losses as his priority, Omar said; “The State Government has in principle approved unbundling of transmission & distribution of electricity and is engaging engage a consultant for the purpose.”
He expressed the hope that the Centre will extend all possible support for the restructuring, corporatization and capacity building of its utilities. On the issue of purchase of power through competitive bidding route, he said J&K had gone a step ahead with J&K State Power Development Corporation awarding one hydel power project, Rattle-690 MW under IPP (BOOT) mode after following competitive tariff bidding process.
“To make this possible, necessary amendment was carried out in the J&K State Electricity Regulatory Commission Act, thereby facilitating signing of Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the promoter. The electricity is to be purchased from the proposed unit at a competitive rate of Rs.1.44 paise per unit. Thus, for new power projects to be developed in the State through IPP mode, a transparent mechanism for competitive tariff bidding has been established successfully,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 IST