Minister of State for PDD, Vikar Rasool Wani has called for stepping up of revenue realization campaign to achieve the targets well before the close of current financial year. He has also stressed the need for more stringent measures to curb the power theft which affects the power budget in the State.Reviewing the performance of the PDD in Jammu pision at a high-level meeting held here on Thursday, the Minister stressed the need for evolving effective mechanism to improve the overall power scenario to avoid unscheduled power cuts in the pision. He directed the engineers to launch a campaign against the power theft and create awareness amongst the consumers for judicious use of power.The Minister urged the Engineers of the department to accomplish the on-going projects being constructed under RGGVY for upgradation of power infrastructure across the state by the end of December, 2013, deadline for the phase Ist of the Scheme.
The Power Minister directed concerned authorities for submission of DPRs of the projects taken up under phase-II to the Government for preliminary scrutiny and to submit these DPRs for approval of funds to the Centre. He instructed the concerned that under phase-II all the uncovered areas should be included under the ambit of the rural electrification which is basic aim and objective of the programme.
While briefing about the performance of the Department, Principal Secretary, PDD, Mr. Arun Kumar Mehta informed the meeting that against a revenue target of Rs. 1300 crore, the Department has realized an amount of Rs. 541.57 crore by ending October, 2013. He assured the Minister that the Department will further mobilize its resources to realize the targets.In order to check the misuse of energy by unscrupulous consumers, the department has stepped up the vigil and recovered a whooping fine to the tune of Rs. 3.41 crore (ending October-13) from such consumers. Besides, the department has also regularized 26077 illegal connections during the same period in the pision, said Mr. Mehta.Under first phase of RGGVY, the Department has covered 66 blocks by developing 4886 Distribution Sub-Stations till date. In the process as many as 2796 works have been completed and 3749 works are under executions which are likely to be completed by the end of December, 2013, the meeting was apprised.Development Commissioner, Power, Mr. Asagar Ali, Chief Engineer, EM&RE, Jammu, Ms. Shahnaz Goni, Chief Engineer, Procurement, Mr. Khursheed Budo, Chief Engineer, PDC, Mr. Ravi Chanyal, Chief Engineer, Commercial & Survey, Mr. Manmohan Singh, Superintending Engineers, Executive Engineers and other senior officers of PDD attended the meeting.