Make requisite arrangements before issuing winter curtailment schedule: LG Sinha directs KPDCL

Srinagar, Sept 20: Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha has made it clear to the top brass of Kashmir Power Development Corporation Limited (KPDCL) to make all the requisite arrangements before the new power curtailment schedule for the coming winter is rolled out, official sources said.
According to the sources, Raj Bhawan will be monitoring the status of power supply round the clock and any complaint regarding un-necessary outages will be taken seriously.
A senior official quoting instructions issued from LG’s office said, “The LG has directed the KPDCL authorities to do all the requisite arrangements including inspection details, line corridor clearance, branch pruning and other related works before the onset of winter.”
The aim, as per the official, is to ensure that there are no power outages or supply related complaints in the months to come,” the official added.
It is said after the instructions were issued, marathon meetings were conducted by the KPDCL.
The latest meeting was convened by the new Managing Director (MD) KPDCL Yaseen Choudhary, where the MD urged the concerned to improve their performance and efficacy.
“The MD made it clear that the divisions with poor performance need to improve their performance and were given time bound targets,” an official attending the meeting said.
It is said that during the meeting, the Chief Engineer (Distribution) admitted that there has been less revenue recovery from the consumers from most of the sub divisions.
“The sub-divisional level officers have been told to take every possible effort for recovery of the revenue from every consumer,” the officer attending the meeting said.
Talking to Rising Kashmir, Chief Engineer KPDCL, Javed Yousuf Dar said the new MD has held a meeting where important revamps apart from other issues were discussed.
“The replacement of wooden poles, up gradation of divisional workshops for providing reliable power supply, improvement in billing and collection are on the top priority for the department to ensure reliable power supply is provided to the general consumers of Kashmir Division,” Dar said.
It may be noted that there were less power curtailments last winter as compared to the previous years. However, this winter, the government wants very minimal power curtailments given the boost that has been given to both the power generations and the power transmission and distribution.