Amid power crisis in Kashmir Valley, Government Tuesday said that with the onset of winters in Kashmir Valley, usage of heating gadgets by the consumers increase manifolds. The Government said that the rampant use of these heating gadgets overloads the power system in the Valley, which at present, has maximum handling capacity of around 1200 MW. “This year, since the inception of winters, the Power Development Department has encountered around 1700 Mega Watts of unrestricted load during peak hours against the agreemented load of around 700 MW only during peak hours.“In view of the uncontrolled use of load by consumers, in violation of their load agreements, there are times when the aggregate load increases to levels which are beyond the handling capacity of local Grid Station or 33 KV feeding lines or 33/11 KV Receiving Station or even 11 KV feeding line. In such situations the department is constrained to enforce distress unscheduled cuts.
If these unscheduled cuts are not enforced, vital power equipments like power transformers, switchgear may get damaged thereby plunging the entire feeding area in darkness for a longer duration.”The government according to news agency CNS in response to a question said that in almost every area of the Kashmir Valley, the installed capacity of transformers is about two to three times the total agreed load of the consumers fed from it. “Inspite of this the rate of damage of distribution transformers increase especially during winters due to excessive use of load by the consumers, way beyond their agreemented load.”The Government said that PDD is trying its best to provide power as per schedule, however, due to excessive overloading by the consumers the department is forced to affect unscheduled cuts. “The PDD could provide uninterrupted power supply if the consumers consume the electricity strictly as per their agreemented loads,” the Government said. (CNS)