Braving heavy snowfall and cold temperature, around 5,000 employees of the Power department are working tirelessly to restore electricity in Kashmir division which has seen heavy damages to power infrastructure due to three-day spell of snowfall.
According to Kashmir Power Development Corporation Limited, the full restoration of power supply in Kashmir will take another 48 hours as many areas still continue to remain inaccessible where the KPDCL staff has to move by foot to reach those towers located in upper reaches.
“Our staff and engineers are working hard as this spell of snowfall caused damage to our transmission lines many times. The situation was such that one day we were to repair the line, the other day it would be off again due to continuous snowfall,” said Chief Engineer, KPDCL, Aijaz Ahmad Dar.
“On Tuesday evening, our 850, 11 KV feeders were working alright, but due to snowfall during night, in the morning today energy supply had dipped to just 215 megawatts in comparison to 1200 megawatts due to fault in 723 feeders during night.
“Today morning out of 951, 11 KV feeders, 723 have developed snags. By evening we had restored 570 out of 723. Similarly our 13, 33 KV feeders are under restoration,” he said adding “our staff has worked hard to ensure that faults are repaired within the shortest possible time given the fact that there was continuous snowfall since Sunday.” When asked about the time it would take to complete all restoration works, the Chief Engineer said “It depends on the weather, if it remains dry, then within 48 hours we would be supplying 100 percent power supply in Kashmir division.”
“The problem we are facing is that the lines have been damaged in some areas which are still inaccessible, our staff have to reach there by foot carrying equipment for repairs, it will take some time as upper reaches have received heavy snowfall.”
“Areas such as Daksum, Waltengo, DK Marg, upper belt of Aishmuqam, Tangdhar etc. our teams are working out ways to repair damages in these areas where there is minimum 3 to 4 feet snowfall,” Dar said adding that despite all these challenges we were able to restore 33 KV Tangdhar line today.
Regarding the reports of power outages in South and North Kashmir, he said, “In South Kashmir we have restored 70 percent power supply, by Thursday we will be able to restore 95 percent power supply. While the power supply in north Kashmir is already restored. However there may be some areas where there are local faults such as transformer damage or snapping of lines, these will also be repaired within a shorter span of time.”