The Power Development Department (PDD) Friday resorted to power cuts due to overloading and technical snag in the transmission lines across Kashmir.
Due to the overloading on the power infrastructure, the power cuts were increased than the routine schedule of 8-hour outages in the non metered areas and 3-hour in metered areas during the day today.“The transmission lines had broken down at many places in Kashmir after the felling of the trees due to which the supply remained affected,” said a senior PDD official.
He said the overloading of the transmission infrastructure lead to the power curtailment. “The transmission system broke down at many places due to the overloading. There is a difficulty in meeting the demand of electricity on daily basis due to the fluctuation in the generation from power units”.
The official, however, said the power cuts were forced as consumption of power was much higher than the agreed load.
“There was a shortfall of 400-500 MWs of electricity at a given time,” he said.
According to officials, they continue to resort to the power cuts of more than 3 and 8 hours even as the government is yet to approve the schedule.
They, however, said they even can’t meet the schedule, which has been submitted to the government as the domestic consumption particularly during the peak hours has increased.
The power breakdown, a senior PDD official said, has also been due to the decrepit transmission system which gets damaged due to slight rainfall and snow.
“In many parts of the rural Kashmir, the transmission system has not been upgraded for a long time,” he said.
Though the power cuts started from early last month triggering Valley-wide protests with people taking to roads against the outages, the breakdown of the infrastructure from last evening only lead to many areas groping in darkness.
Officials said due to the breakdown, electricity remained snapped to many areas across Kashmir from last evening only.
“The electricity was, however, not restored during the day also,” they said, adding the breakdown was due to the technical snag.
Minister of state for Power, Mohammad Ashraf Mir, said the transmission lines had broken down at many places including Kupwara.
He said directions have been issued to restore the transmission lines within 24-hours.
