Power reforms essential to meet demand, supply gap: Abdullah

State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today called for power reforms and said they were essential in assuring uninterrupted and quality supply of electricity to bridge the availability and demand gap.

"While attention has to be paid to increase the indigenous power generation, there is urgency for bringing about change in Transmission and Distribution (T&D) system to check the losses and leakages on this count", he said while calling for new initiatives by the Power Development Department.

Abdullah said that the overall development of the state was dependent on growth and availability of power and the sector was a priority in the government policy planning.

"Apart from endeavouring to launch new power projects and ensure timely completion of the ongoing ones, we have to concentrate on checking leakages and losses due to poor transmission and distribution system in the state", he said.

Laying emphasis on completion of schemes as per fixed time frame, Omar called for fixing responsibilities for the delays on this count.

"The status and progress of each scheme should be examined by the Planning Department to ascertain the delays if any and suggest measures for their checking", he said.