As this winter has brought along prolonged power cuts to Kashmir, the Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses of over 50 percent is said to be the underlying cause of the unprecedented load-shedding.
The power department has resorted to curtailment schedule inorder to overcome power shortage. According to the schedule, non-metered areasare facing eight and a half hour power cuts, while the metered areas face fourand a half hour power cuts every day.
“Aggregate Technical &Commercial (AT&C) losses in J&K are very high. The reasons for suchlosses are technical as well as commercial. To minimize the losses, the systemneeds up-gradation and improvement especially in existing outdated distributionnetwork,” said a senior official.
Explaining the impact of losses, the official said, “If agrid station supplies 100 MW of power, only 50 MW reach the consumers due tooutdated transmission system.
He however said that with the efforts of the Central andJ&K governments, the AT&C losses which were 61.30% in 2014-15 have beenbrought down to a little over 50 percent at present.
Talking to Greater Kashmir, Chief Engineer PowerDepartment Kashmir, Aijaz Ahmad, “We are putting in all efforts to reduceAT&C losses by initiating a slew of reforms which include up-gradation oftransmission and distribution system, grid stations and 100 percent metering.”
According to official figures, the estimated hydro powerpotential of J&K is 20,000 Megawatts, of which about 16475 MW have beenidentified. This comprises 11283 MW in Chenab basin, 3084 MW in Jhelum basin,500 MW in Ravi basin and 1608 MW in Indus basin.
Out of the identified potential, only 3263.46 MW, i.e. 20% ofidentified potential, has been exploited until now which comprises 1211.96 MWin J&K sector, 2009 MW in Central sector and 42.5 MW in private sector.