Despite the tall claims of government to install Aerial Bundled (AB) cable to combat the power theft in Kashmir, the locals of several areas Thursday allege that ‘several ground staff has developed some nexus and are delaying the project of cabling for their own reasons’.
Some of the locals of Iqbal Abad Bemina informed that the installation of Aerial Bundled (AB) cable in the area was going on since March this year. “There seems to be no progress further since then.”
“The installation of Aerial Bundled (AB) cable has been under progress since March this year. All these months, residents pressed them to complete the project but to no avail. The area was already covered with prepaid smart meters last year on conductor wires,” said one of the locals.
He said, “We see the KPDCL responsible for prolonged delay in getting the area cabled to bring down losses. Now for the last four days, we were without electricity for day and night. For days, the PDD was carrying out the cabling works and power shutdown was genuine.”
The residents however said that once they resume power in the evening, some fault starts developing—plunging them into darkness all these days. “We expected PDD Assistant Executive Engineer Bemina should have addressed the issue after bringing into his notice too.”
“Unfortunately, the load distribution on feeders is such that one feeder supplies power to above 40 houses in our neighborhood, resulting in frequent faults,” they said adding “We are paying our power bills but it is the power department which is troubling us. Either there is some nexus or some influence is stopping them from redressing our grievances.”
In the meantime, residents of the Safa-Kadal area said that they were facing major unscheduled power-cuts especially in the night hours.
“Despite the ongoing power curtailment of nearly five hours, we are facing the major unscheduled power-cuts especially in the night hours.”
“There seems to be no proper mechanism of PDD in providing us the electricity as per the power curtailment schedule,” they said
Meanwhile, an official of PDD said, “We are working round the clock to install AB cables.”
He said, “As of now, under Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), PDD was investing over Rs 5000 crores to address the problem of electricity cables.”
“We are upgrading the electricity wires to insulated cables and we are upgrading our transformers too,” the official said—(KNO)
