Minister of State for Power, Vikar Rasool in reply to a question jointly raised by Mr. Yash Paul Sharma and Dr. Shehnaz Ganai in the Legislative Council informed that the execution of 37.5 Parnai HEP in EPC mode is being expedited.The Minister informed that the EPC cost of the project is Rs 474.32 crore and the completion cost is Rs 640.41 crore, adding that an amount of Rs. 35 crore has been expended up to March 2013 on account of land acquisition, pre-construction works and salaries and the project is targeted for completion in 4 years after accord of award.Mr. Vikar informed that there is no project by the name of Kalana on river Mandi in District Poonch. He said that work on 12.5 MW Mandi SHP project is in progress and is expected to be commissioned by 2016. He said that the project was awarded to an IPP namely M/S Magpie Hydel under the State Hydel Policy of 2003, in 2005, adding that the delay in execution of project was due to adverse law and order situation and difficulties faced in land acquisition.
The Minister said 12 MW Girja-ki-Gali project has also been awarded under State Hydel Policy 2011on which the work will commence after preparation of DPR by IPPs. Moreover, 3 MW Sultanpathri has been tendered out on which Technical bid evaluation is underway based on which decision about opening of price bids shall be taken, he added.The Minister said that power to twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch is being supplied from 220/132 KV Grid Station Gladni through 132 KV Gladni-Kalakote transmission line which is being maintained by three pisions viz TLMD-I, TLMD-II & TLCD-I Jammu. The grid stations Kalakote, Rajouri, Draba and Chandak fall under TLCD-I Jammu. There is no proposal for creation of separate Transmission Line Maintenance pision in Poonch at present, he said.In reply to another question by Mr. B R Kundal, Mr. Vikar informed the House that out of 890 Distributed Transformers (DTs), 148 transformers got damaged during April to September, 2013 and were replaced subsequently registering 16.62 per cent damage rate.The Minister informed that the transformers are damaged due to certain reasons which include overloading, short circuiting of LT lines, lighting, ingress of moisture, unbalanced load and internal faults. He said there is no proposal to segregate the farm sector from the existing domestic supply, adding that possible segregation of farm sector shall be taken into consideration when LT and HT system is improved.Mr. Javid Ahmad Rana, Ashraf Mir, Syed Rafiq Shah, Khalid Najeeb Suhrawardy, Jugal Kishore, Naeem Akhtar Indrabi, Dr. Shahnaz Ganai and Devender Singh Rana also raised the supplementaries to the question.