Jammu, Feb 7: The state government is formulating a ‘comprehensive plan’ to meet the ‘system requirement’ in Power Development Department(PDD) to meet the growing demand of power and end the crisis.  Official sources told Greater Kashmir that a comprehensive prospective plan encompassing projected requirements of 4000 Mega Watt till 2020-21 would be submitted by the end of this financial year.
 “The current demand of power has gone up to 2500 MW and it is being projected  to rise to 4000 MW by 2020-21. Keeping in view the system requirement, revenue realization and even revamping of the department, we are giving final touch to comprehensive plan which is to be submitted by the end of this financial year,” a senior PDD official said.
 Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who was reviewing Power Sector at a high level meeting here on Monday, called upon the senior officials of PDD for early formulation of the plan so that the government could take effective measures to deal with the growing demand of power in the state.
 “Chief Minister stressed on measures for bridging the gap between availability and demand of power and advised for thoroughly checking the leakages and losses due to poor transmission and distribution system in the state,” the official informed.
 He said the main thrust is being laid for having a ‘new distribution system’ and installation of meters in un-metered areas. Sources said the Chief Minister took serious note on ‘slow pace’ of revenue realization as against the fixed target of Rs 1300 crore for this financial year.
 “We have realized Rs 100 crore more as compared to the corresponding year’s figures till date. We are hopeful that the department would achieve the desired results by the end of March 2011,” sources said, adding that the department has so far realized about Rs 670 crore as against the last year’s figures of about Rs 565 crore till the month of January.
 Official sources said the chief minister also took a review of consumer metering, computerizing billing plan, progressive growth of revenue collection, T&D and AT&C losses, revenue collection efficiency, categories of consumers, connected load, inspections conducted, fines imposed, revenue realization, revenue projection, financial and physical progress under RGGVY, various projects under PMRP and R-APDPR projects.
 “The detailed discussions on 73 schemes under PMRP were held during the meeting. As against the availability of total Rs 1352 crore, the state government has spent Rs 851.33 crore on various projects till December 2010,” sources said.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 7 Feb 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 7 Feb 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 8 Feb 2011 00:00:00 IST