Public needs awareness to shun illegal usage: Qasim
Though Jammu and Kashmir State
This is despite Chief Minister Omar Abdullah asking the Power Development Department (PDD) to recover outstanding dues from various departments as well as people.
Ironically government is the biggest defaulter as far as a paying power bills are concerned.
Adopting a heavy-handed approach against others for making recoveries, PDD has failed to recover over crore of pending rupees from various government departments and to retain this loss department has implemented curtailments, mostly during prime hours.
According to sources more than 20 government departments, including various wings of PDD itself, have not deposited their electricity Bills, compelling PDD to resort to unscheduled power cuts.
In addition to the breach of CM, the department has also added to the miseries of students, preparing for various examinations.
“PDD has maximized our miseries in this cold with persistent power curtailments. Our examinations are over head and every minute is precious, but due to constant power cuts, we are unable to concentrate, courtesy PDD,” said an engineering student, Adil Yousuf, adding that it is hard to study in dark and in cold, it is obvious that in winter one can’t sit without proper heating arrangement.
When during winters, power is much consumed as compared to rest of the year; the department emerges with more strict curtailments.
“If PDD is imposing curtailments with the pretext of over loading and extra consumption, then they must have to act strictly against illegal connections and has to work passionately in realizing more revenues and in curbing pilferage,” he said.
The condition of the tamper-proof areas is also same, as residents of such areas allege PDD for deliberately imposing curtailments.
“In our area, the PDD had installed electronic meters to check pilferage and during installation we were promised continuous power supply throughout the season, but with the arrival of winters, the supply has been irregular,” said Lakhvinder Singh, a resident of the Digiana locality, adding that the power supply, if linger for subtle odd hours is single line with very low voltage, which is of no use.
Admitting the fact, PDD Chief Engineer, Mohd Qasim said that the curtailment is the penalty of over-loading, “as during peak hours people in almost all areas make unnecessary use of illegal power supply, thus disturbing the setting,” said Qasim, adding that people by making superfluous use of electricity are bothering other legitimate consumers.
He also appealed public to shun pilfering, as it creates disturbances in scheduled setting, following creates inconvenience to many others. Welcoming people to work as enticers (Khabris), Qasim said “we appreciate the people to come forward and complaint against those, using illegal connections.”
It is pertinent to mention here that PDD is continuously raiding areas and is putting all its effort to curb illegal usage and in recovering pending Bills from people.
In the raiding drive, the department has already suspended four of its workers for deceiving department, said chief engineer.
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