Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 28: Lamb-asting the Power Development Department for effecting huge scheduled and unscheduled power cuts, chairman of J&K National Panthers Party (NPP) Harsh Dev Singh said that the poor quality cables installed under Centrally sponsored R-APDRP scheme in Jammu were largely responsible for the extremely chaotic state of affairs.
He said that there were large scale complaints of the newly used bunch cables getting heated after taking load for a couple of hours and then getting burnt. He said that the Govt despite charging hefty power tariff had cheated the public as the scheduled and unscheduled power cuts continued unabated despite installation of new cables and electronic meters.
Reacting to the successive power curtailment schedules announced by the Power Development Deptt for various areas of Jammu to execute the works under R-APDRP, Singh described the move as highly atrocious and outrageously wicked which had come as a shocker for the people of the affected areas. He said that the PDD order for a shutdown for 4 to 5 hours a day in different colonies had created huge resentment with people questioning the timing of the shutdown.
He said that agitated people sought to know the logic behind carrying out the said R-APDRP works during summers when the temperature was hovering around 43º c. He said that it was ironical that R-APDRP works were slowed down during winter months with most of the infrastructure creation, repairs and replacements being executed in summer months causing untold miseries and hardships to the people.
Alleging large scale irregularities and corruption in the implementation of R-APDRP, Singh further charged the PDD of being hand in glove with IRCON international Ltd which was assigned the contract of improvement of electricity distribution networks in Jammu. He said that IRCON Co was already under scanner with allegations of omissions and commissions and poor quality of materials used for implementation of the scheme. The Govt must hold a high level inquiry into the matter.
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