Amid unprecedented power shortage in Kashmir, authorities tighten noose on ‘erring consumers’

Srinagar: Faced with their failure to provide electric power as per the announced schedule, authorities in Kashmir started tightening noose around “erring consumers” on Saturday.

The Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Ltd (KPDCL), in a statement, said: “KPDCL tightens noose against erring consumers. 1,117 consumers disconnected. Rs 29.89 crore revenue realised in 4 days.

“In order to provide relief to genuine consumers, KPDCL has escalated its night patrolling and inspection drives to tighten noose against erring consumers who indulge in widespread hooking, violation of agreed load and bypassing of the meters.”

It also said that it also collected a revenue of Rs 29.89 crore from consumers over the last 4 days amidst scaled up drives to check energy pilferage that primarily results in outages and damage to transformers, thus bringing hardships upon genuine consumers.

“A revenue of Rs 9.18 crore as pending arrear dues were collected on Friday alone by the Corporation.

“Out of 1,153 inspections carried out in Kashmir Division, 98 were conducted in circle one Srinagar, 233 in circle second Srinagar, 367 in circle Ganderbal, 140 in circle Pulwama, 142 in circle Bijbehara, and 154 in Circle Sopore. Around 228 KW load was added across the 6 circles of the Corporation during these drives.

“Penalty of Rs 7.81 lakh was also imposed on those who were unauthorisedly using power in terms of Section 126 of the Electricity Act,” it said.

It said that a total of 1,117 domestic, commercial and industrial connections were also disconnected for non-payment of energy dues which were pending for more than three months.

“This includes 886 domestic, 212 commercial and 17 industrial consumers. Meanwhile, 62 Domestic Transformers (DTs) were also reported damaged on Friday due to overloading, up from 52 reported on Thursday.

“KPDCL also repaired and replaced 61 transformers on Friday, to comply with the directions issued for replacement of the damaged DTs. There was steady procession of damaged DTs at Central Workshop Pampore and the divisional workshops of KPDCL thus putting strain on meeting the timelines fixed by the government.”

The corporation said that it requests its consumers to pay their pending bills or the corporation will be left with no option, but to disconnect their power supply.

IANS