Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 2: Power Development Department has announced that there will be no power curtailment in metered/ urban areas of Jammu, Udhampur, Reasi and Ramban Districts this summer while the rural consumers will also get respite with reduction in scheduled power cut from 8 hours to 7 hours.
According to the department, this improvement in power supply scenario is due to the massive capacity addition carried out during this year at all voltage levels across Jammu Province while adhering to the area-specific roll plan formulated by the department in this regard.
Capacity addition of 50 MVA at 220 kV and 290 MVA at 132 kV level will provide a strong back-end support to the distribution network while huge addition of 149.60 MVA&167 MVA at 33 kV & 11 kV levels, respectively in distribution sector will address the voltage profile issues to a larger extent even during the peak summer period.
In Jammu South region, there will be no power curtailment this year as compared to average daily curtailment of 2hrs imposed last year. Likewise, Jammu North region(mainly in areas of Janipur, Swarn Vihar, Muthi, Bantalab, Roop Nagar etc),shall remain free from any curtailment this year against the average power curtailment of 3-4 hrs last year.
In rural areas of Jammu, the power curtailment will be reduced from 8 hrs to 7 hrs this year. Apart from Jammu, there will be no power curtailment in Udhampur, Reasi and Ramban town areas as well while power curtailment will be reduced to 1 hr in urban areas of Samba, Kathua, Rajouri, Poonch, Doda and Kishtwar districts from 4 hours last year.
Like Jammu, the power curtailment in the rural areas of all other districts in the province shall be reduced to 7 hrs against 8 hrs curtailment of last year.
The department has urged the public not to resort to any act of fiddling with the electrical network, direct hooking of LT lines, which may cause serious damage of power lines and the associated equipment supplying power to them.
Besides, the department has appealed to general public to make judicious use of electricity and pay their electricity bill regularly to avoid accumulation of arrears since the consumers will very soon have smart/ pre-paid meters in their premises.