By and large PDD is always in the news. That shows two conflicting phenomenon at one and the same time. It is the most important service for the people and it is the most trouble generating department for the people. Power supply is most crucial to the development of the State. But at the same time experience has proved that it is most crucial in almost all aspects of life. In the age of computer and advanced information technology, power is the one area that moves the wheels. Our State is deficit in power production notwithstanding the fact that it has the capacity to generate enormous quantities of hydroelectric power. In the area of revenue realization, the PDD has been performing very poorly for some years in the past. A comparative study of liabilities and revenue income shows that liabilities have been increasing with the passage of time and revenue realization has been dwindling. The Power Development Department (PDD) had fixed Rs 3508.62 crore worth revenue target for the last financial year of 2014-15 but the realization was only Rs 1750 crore, which was less than 50 per cent. The gap between the liabilities and revenue earning has been widening after 1996-97 and has now come to the widest known so far. While we will not focus on purchase of power or the reasons why our production capacity is not increasing, we shall have to speak about our failure to realize the target fixed for revenue collection. At one point of time PDD said that if power metering is done, pilferage will stop and revenue will increase. In pursuit of this theory most of the areas of Jammu were metered and the remaining are in the process of metering. But this has not actually increased the revenue as was expected. Therefore, the department shall have to find out the reason for non realization of full revenue and introduce methods and reforms that will help remove the gap between the liabilities and revenue.
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