Shopain, Sep 15: The residents of several villages in south Kashmir’s Shopian district Wednesday staged a peaceful protest against the Power Development Department (PDD) for “sudden and selective” increase in power tariff.
The residents of NarwaChodrigund, Ayand, Rawalpora, Bamnipora, Gadapora, Kachdora and Palpora staged a sit-in protest in front of the power receiving station in Narwa village against the power tariff hike.
According to residents, the PDD had hiked the monthly power tariff by Rs 225.
“The department has suddenly hiked the power tariff from Rs 550 to Rs 775,” said Shabir Ahmad, a local.
The residents termed the hike as “selective and discriminatory”.
“We fail to understand why the PDD authorities hiked the power tariff in a particular cluster of villages,” said Khursheed Ahmad, a resident of the area.
According to Ahmad, only eight villages in the entire district had been served bills with the revised tariff.
“It is a discriminatory move of the authorities. Despite footing our bills without fail, the authorities have hiked the tariff in only our villages,” he said.
Before dispersing peacefully, the residents appealed to the authorities to immediately roll back the power hike.
Assistant Executive Engineer, PDD Shakeel Ahmad told Greater Kashmir that the hike was in proportion to the consumption of energy.
He said that at least 80 percent of Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses were recorded from the feeder from which electricity is fed to these villages.