Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

Steps to help J&K tide-over power crisis

Persuant to the Prime Minister's visit to J&K and a follow-up review of the power situation in the state with the Chief Minister the centre has taken steps including allocation of an additional 100 MW of power to the state to meet the situation caused by deficient hydel generation due to a poor monsoon.

The Power Secretary visited J&K on 18th and 19th Dec and reviewed the situation with the State officials and initiated measures to help the state tide over the current shortage of power.

Besides the additional allocation of 100 MW the steps taken to ease the situation include advising the Load Dispatch Centre to keep the transmission system fully operational. The state authorities have also been advised to sort out, in the next few days, the commercial issues with the POWERGRID/ Load Despatch Centre. Pending this there will be no action taken that would affect the power supply to the state. The state has outstanding bills of Rs 300 crores towards interchange payments on account of overdrawal in previous periods.

The state authorities have also been advised to operate the Pampore diesel generation plant (175 MW) at Srinagar to meet urgent requirements. This plant is at present not being operated due to cost considerations.

The power supply problem in the state was acute last week as some transmission feeders of the POWERGRID were taken off the system due to low frequency of operation in the Northern Region and overdrawal of power by J&K. The state normally draws 860 MW from the grid and when the feeders were taken off it could draw only 560 MW leading to serious problems.