Jammu, June 30: Voluntary Load Disclosure Scheme (VLDS) introduced by Jammu Kashmir Power Development Department (JKPDD) to check the use of unauthorized load by the consumers, has failed to yield desired results as till date only one percent consumers have turned up voluntarily to disclose actual load.
 With this scheme, the JKPDD in its notifications on May 16, had given an opportunity to the consumers of various categories to regularise their unauthorized load up to July 9, 2010. The department had requested the consumers to come forward and voluntarily disclose their power load to avoid any penal action under section 95 of Jammu Kashmir Electricity Act 2010.
 Sources, however, informed that initially the VLDS scheme was intended for about 1 lakh consumers in domestic and commercial category particularly in urban centres, but so far only 1 percent of the consumers have turned up to the department for disclosing load under ‘Amnesty Period’.
 Sources said that the department may have to extend the time period under the scheme for another month to enable the consumers to disclose their load. “We will be launching a state wide campaign immediately after the amnesty scheme is over and consumer found using power in addition to their sanctioned load will be panelized”, a senior officer of Power Development Department said.
 “In absence of the actual data of installed load, JKPDD is unable to plan and upgrade the existing transmission and distribution system to cater the actual load”, he said adding, this leads to more interruptions/breakdowns of power supply. Besides this unregistered load also lead to extensive damage to distribution transformers and other network, added sources. 
 It is pertinent to mention here that the Section 95 (1) of the Jammu Kashmir Electricity Act 2010 says that whoever dishonestly hooks main power lines, tampers with meters, installs or uses a tampered meter, current reversing transformer, loop connection or any other device which interferes with accurate or proper registration, calibration or metering of electric current can also face up to one month in jail.
 Also, Jammu Kashmir has threatening 63% transmission and distribution losses against 26% in rest of the country, about 9.2 lakh unregistered households, 13 lakh unmetered houses, 40% transformer damage against 2.5 % in rest of the country and 3 times increase in actual load than capacity.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST