Most of the areas in Baramulla town are without electric supply, leaving the residents anguished.
Locals said that the authorities in the Power Development Department (PDD) Baramulla have “messed up” the distribution of electricity supply.
They said most areas in the town were without electric supply due to flawed changes made to the receiving stations feeding the respective areas of the town.
Locals said that the affected areas include KhojaBagh, Fatehpora, Frestihar and other adjoining areas which have not received electric supply for the past four days.
Besides these areas, complaints are also pouring in from other areas of the town that did not receive power supply during the past few days.
“Earlier, our area would get electric supply from Jetty Receiving Station but the department now shifted our area to the DelinaShath (Baramulla-I) Receiving Station,” a resident of KhojaBagh said. “Previously, we would receive electric supply as per the curtailment schedule issued by the department for metered areas but since our receiving station was changed, we are living in complete darkness.”
Previously, the main town Baramulla and its adjoining areas used to get power supply from different receiving stations but now all the residential colonies have been shifted to receive electric supply from a single receiving station – DelinaShath.
The move has “messed up” the power distribution with consumers complaining that they were not getting electric supply even for three hours a day now.
However, the PDD officials said that the Jetty Receiving Station had been kept only to give essential electric supply to the COVID19 hospital setup in an indoor stadium at KhojaBaghBaramulla.
The residents though do not buy this argument saying that the receiving station was changed deliberately to make people suffer without electricity.
Chief Engineer PDD, Aijaz Ahmad Dar said the curtailment in electricity was due to some technical faults in Sheeri Grid Station.
“There was also a problem with Lower Jhelum project but people will get routine power supply within a day,” he said.
About the complaint of special treatment to particular areas he said, “I will take up the matter with the officials and see why this is happening there.”