Unbearable heat, power and water crisis

Quoting a famous couplet of poet Akbar Allahabadi that “Qaum kay gum main dinner khatay hain  hukkaam kay saath;  Ranj leader ko bahut  hai,  magar  aaram kay  saath.” This couplet hardly needs any translation as the apathy of leaders or Ministers towards the suffering masses is “manifest” in their comfortable ways of life and hollow rhetoric. The see saw  rhythm of “coming ” and “going” of electric supply, independent of scheduled power cuts and lightening cuts, have made the lives of Jammu citizens miserable in this unendurable heat, currently oscillating between higher 40s degree Celsius. While this all is going on, most of the Ministers in the Government as also public representatives prefer to keep themselves cool – cool in the enviably comfortable weather of Kashmir valley.
So far as power position is concerned, in  that, agreeably not only the system is guilty but to some extent , we as consumers too do not usually go in for self regulation and prefer to refrain from not imposing self discipline in using power in those rooms only where it is required the most. Perhaps, frequent power breakdowns frustrate such attempts. It is despite Power Minister’s directions to the PDD in not resorting to even planned shutdowns but the results on the ground are that electric supply goes off for hours together at a stretch in this scorching heat. Technical part of that is there being inapt system and supply position being far from the needs of requirement, resulting into power cuts during peak summer months. Because of intense heat, transformers and the circuit get damaged.
Addition to woes of the people is due to water crisis also. Here, the distribution and supply of water in certain areas is not only on daily basis but supplied more than required while most of the areas are reeling under acute shortage of water. Otherwise too, in normal conditions, most of the areas are supplied water on alternate days only and that too for an hour or so.  The relation between the power and the water is inverse and if one or two hours’ power cut is there, that means nearly eight lakh gallons of water “loss” in the sense of affecting extracting water from the water table or getting it from other  feeding sources like rivers etc for which power supply  is required. During summer months, ground water table goes further into depletion and Tawi River too is almost dried up. Power tripping several times a  day plays havoc with management of water supply.
It is of no use experiencing the same woes during summer months, reeling under it and keep on resorting to remedial measures of absolute temporary nature. Year after year, we experience the same plight. Power supply on relatively uninterrupted basis continues to be a distant possibility as no cogent result oriented long term planning is made to resolve the issue. The same is true of water supply. Pressing into service, a few water tankers is tantamount to a drop in the bucket.
Again , we are to remain glued to the hopes of some improvement in weather conditions or expect a few showers in the region to bring some respite  to the suffering people and result in easing of power and drinking water position. Why not, the present difficulties are on account of the blend of nature and  man; nature – because of scorching heat and man – because of the failure of the Governments in bringing about improvement worth the name in power – water crisis.

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