Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 19: Taking a serious note of non-compliance of its directions and imposing a penalty on concerned officers, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has directed the Jammu and Kashmir Government to introduce Automatic Load Management Scheme in time bound manner to curtail overdrawal from the Grid.
The Commission has also directed the State to identify the feeders which can be opened in case of danger to the grid commensurate with the requirement of load relief and share the same with Northern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NRLDC), which will monitor the compliance and submit monthly report to the Regulatory Commission.
The strong directions have come in the matter of unscheduled overdrawal from the Grid by J&K and non-compliance of the Regulatory Commission’s earlier order in this regard by the officers in charge of STU and SLADCs.
The Commission has imposed a penalty of Rs 50 thousand each on , then Principal Secretary PDD, J&K Government and then Chief Engineer State Load Dispatch Centre, Jammu Kashmir, for non-compliance of its earlier direction to curtail the overdrawal.
“We deprecate the attitude of the concerned officers towards the order of the Commission in the serious matter like grid discipline. These officers have not only failed to comply with our directions but also failed to discharge their responsibilities under the Act and Grid Code,” observed the CERC.
Rejecting the excuses made the State Government for unscheduled overdrawal in response to show cause notice issued by the Commission on September 3, 2012, the Regulatory panel gave instances indicating that there was lukewarm response to the earlier directions of NRLDC as well as of the Commission.
The State Government, in its reply to the show cause notice for the overdrawal, had listed the reasons, such as drop in power generation due to low water discharge in winters, heavy rush of tourists during January to March of 2012 resulting into enhanced consumption of power, holy month of Ramzan in fourth week of July, etc.
The counsel representing the State also submitted that the quantum of overdrawal was very low during the period and corrective actions were being taken to comply with the Grid Code and directions of NRLDC.
Maintaining that the J&K could have made bilateral arrangements of power through open access and purchase from the power exchange to meet short term requirements, the Regulatory Commission pointed out that each constituent of the Northern Region has a bounden responsibility to ensure that the its drawal from the Grid is confined to its schedule for safe and secure operation of the regional grid.
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