Jammu: The government of India has not refused return of projects run by power giant NHPC, deputy chief minister and Minister for Power Development Dr. Nirmal Kumar Singh said on Thursday.
Responding to a written question in state legislature by a member Hakim Mohammad Yaseen Shah, he responded in confirmatory the Coalition Government was committed to retrieve the NHPC owned Power Projects to the State.
“The transfer of power projects is an important part of the developmental agenda of the BJP-PDP Coalition Government. As mentioned by the Finance Minister in the Power Budget Speech for the year 2015-2016, the Government would actively pursue transfer of hydel projects from NHPC and that budget provided funds for meeting the operation and maintenance cost of such power projects to be transferred from NHPC.”
On 16 March 2015 the Deputy Chief Minister and the Finance Minister met the Indian Power Minister formally and impressed upon the Government the need for transfer of power projects of Dul Hasti and Uri from NHPC to state among other important issues of power sector, the reply said.
“Subsequently this has been raised by Deputy Chief Minister in various Power Ministers’ Conferences. The State government is actively pursuing the transfer of Power Projects,” he said.
Asked whether it was a fact that the Indian Power Minister during his visit to the State has refused to handover any of the power projects, Dr Nirmal Singh said: “As per the minutes of meeting held on 10-10-2017 to review the Power Sector in Jammu and Kashmir under the chairmanship of the Union Minister of State (I/C) for Power and New Renewable Energy at SKICC Srinagar issued by the Ministry of Power, Government of India vide F.No: 16/38/2015-IPDS(Vol-II) dated 22-11-2017, there is no mention about the refusal of handover of power projects to the State.”
Asked whether it was a fact that the power supply worsens in the State and the people are suffering on this account particularly during the summer in Jammu and winter in Kashmir, Dr Nirmal Singh said that as per the Contract Demand, connected load of the consumers is presently around 3101MW and the demand should not exceed 1551 MW at Load Demand Factor of 0.5.
“Against registered load of 3101 MW, the demand should have been around 1551 MW but it is around 2950 MW (un-restricted), which leads to conclusion that there exists huge unregistered load in the system which is being used by the consumers over and above registered connected load.”
