Rs 100 cr sanctioned for addl infra under Saubhagya scheme in J&K: Kansal

Principal Secretary PDD, Rohit Kansal chairing a meeting at Srinagar on Saturday.
Principal Secretary PDD, Rohit Kansal chairing a meeting at Srinagar on Saturday.

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 10: Principal Secretary Power Development Department, Rohit Kansal today chaired a meeting with senior officers to review the preparedness of Power Development Department (PDD) with regard to power supply for the upcoming winter season in Jammu and Kashmir.
The meeting was attended by Managing Director KPDCL, Chief Engineer KPDCL, Chief Engineer Projects, SEs, X-ENs and other concerned. MD JPDCL and other concerned from Jammu division participated in the meeting through video conferencing.
At the outset, the Principal Secretary was briefed about the Action Plan and its implementation during the upcoming winter season in both the divisions of Kashmir and Jammu and other preparations for the upcoming winter season.
The meeting discussed various issues with regard to branch cutting of trees along Transmission Lines and power supply lines, buffer stock of transformers, tendering of transformers and workshops’ upgradation, setting up of divisional control rooms etc.
Speaking on the occasion, Kansal directed the concerned officers to maintain buffer stock of transformers for time-bound replacement of damaged equipment and subsequent reclaimable transformers and eventually adding them up to the buffer stock.
He also set a deadline to repair and reclaim transformers so that buffer stock of such transformers would be added besides the repairing of transformers in the normal course of time.
On establishing divisional control rooms in all divisions of distribution division, he directed the concerned to set up a dedicated 24X7 public grievance center with sufficient staff to cater to the consumers’ complaints.
He told the meeting that for additional infrastructure under Saubhagya, Rs 50 cr each have been sanctioned for Kashmir and Jammu divisions to replace wooden poles and barbed wires and directed to concerned officers to issue tenders for the work so that an entire village would be taken for the upgradation of power system.
He said that during the upcoming winter season the priority is that the system must be up and running with minimum disruption in the power supply system.
The meeting was also informed that in areas like Gurez, Machhil, Keran, Karnah etc which remain cut off during winters, sufficient amount of fuel (Diesel, Petrol and K-Oil) has been dumped for which funds have already been released to the concerned chief engineers.
The meeting also discussed installation of new meters and the cost to be incurred during the installation process.