Srinagar: National Conference (NC) Thursday expressed concern over the erratic power supply in Kashmir division saying that the consumers were facing hardships due to unscheduled power cuts.
A statement of NC issued here said that echoing the outrage of the consumers, NC General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar said that the residents of Srinagar uptown and downtown areas were irked at unscheduled outages.
“I have been receiving phone calls from various people from uptown as well as Shahar-e-Khas areas about the hide-and-seek that electricity is playing with them. It is anybody’s guess what the situation will be in the rural and far-flung areas,” he said. “For the first few days, the aggrieved consumers were told that power cuts were because of some repairs. The scenario hasn’t changed. It’s getting worse with each passing day. It seems that the government will again leave the people to their fate this year as well.”
Sagar said that the incumbent administration had failed on every conceivable matrix in providing basic and effective amenities to the people.
“As the temperature will drop to deadly lows, it will become difficult for people, particularly children and the aged. How are people going to face relentless winter in absence of basic utility services like electricity and water,” he said. “Not even a single unit of power was added to the power pool of J&K since 2015. All the major power projects in J&K had come up during previous NC-led governments. The augmentation and upgradation of electricity infrastructure in J&K has been put into a deep freeze. The administration in J&K works with the sole agenda of extorting money from consumers without delivering services.”
Meanwhile, in a separate statement NC called the reduction in petrol and diesel prices as “mere eyewash” and “below par” compared to the exorbitant cumulative increase in the previous months.
The statement said that echoing the public sentiment on the meager decrease in the petrol and diesel rates, NC spokesman Imran Nabi Dar said that when petroleum prices were deregulated, the assurance was zero excise duties but the government had just come up with cosmetic measures, which were below par compared to the cumulative hike in the price of fossil fuels since 2018.
Calling the reduction a knee jerk reaction to the losses in by-polls, Dar said that the measures would not provide much relief to the consumers, who had been at the receiving end due to the incessant tax imposition.