Powerless Valley

THE scheduled and unscheduled power curtailments by the Power Development Department in the non-metered areas in Srinagar, particularly in old city, have made the life of the denizens of these areas virtually a hell. Nothing could be more troublesome than being forced to spend hours together amid sizzling heat without power. It is quite a long time now that we have been listening to the official claims that Kashmir has the potential to generate 20k MW power. Almost
every Indian political stalwart – or for that matter any technocrat – who visits the Valley make it a point to remind the people that Kashmir can generate so much of power which could suffice to meet the need of half of India. But the question is why such electricity has not been generated till date. Our homegrown politicians who owe an answer to the people of this sate on this count, have instead invented a cunning trick to absolve themselves of the responsibility of seeing the state generating at least the amount of power it needs to meet its own requirements.
It is sad that the official line during the winters maintain that because of the “low water level, the projects in the Valley do not generate to the optimum capacity and therefore the people would have to bear with the shortage till summers.” But when it is summer, the same politicians fail to appreciate the plight of the people who are being denied the electricity for hours everyday putting them to the extreme inconvenience and trouble. It is surprisingly that the two-day power curtailment that some years ago would be maintained in the Valley during winters only, has been extended to the summers as well. Except for the areas where meters have been installed, all other areas are being subjected to unscheduled and scheduled long curtailments. One fails to understand that if the authorities have touted the installation of the meters as a major success that as per their assertions has increased the revenue base of the government, why then metering in other areas has been shelved?
The successive governments and more particularly the coalition government led by Mufti Muhammad Syed during its stint promised to demand compensation from New Delhi for the losses state suffers because of the Indus Water Treaty that debars J&K from generating power from its three major rivers. It is share travesty of the justice
that the majority of the projects in Kashmir is being run in the central sector and from the power generated from these projects the state gets just 12 percent royalty while the 88 percent of the power goes to outside state. This is despite the fact that the major resource for the generation of the power – that is land and water – belongs to the state and New Delhi only invests the money. If the government of India agrees to give the counter guarantees there are multiple numbers of global investment giants who could easily agree to lend money to the state government for construction of major projects.  Refusing the counter guarantees to the outside agencies and allowing its NHPC to generate huge quantity of power in the state, amply demonstrates that New Delhi does not want the state to have its own projects.