JK Govt to address the bottlenecks in hydel power generation

The Jammu and Kashmir government would address the bottlenecks in hydel power generation projects, for which identified potential in the state is to the tune of 20,000 MW, state Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu said.
"The government would address the bottlenecks in hydel generation projects of different capacities for which identified potential in the state is of the order of 20000 Mega watts," Drabu said, while presenting a separate power sector budget in the state legislative assembly today.
He termed the separate power sector budget for the state from 2015-16 a landmark initiative of the new government.
He said, "The reasons are mainly three fold. First, sustainable development of the energy resources coupled with reforms in the power sector in a definite time frame.

"Second, supply of 24x7 quality, reliable and affordable power to all domestic, commercial and industrial consumers.
"Third, which is structurally intertwined with the reforms, is containment of our fiscal deficit and unleashing of a new era of development."

He said that solar power projects in Ladakh within the scope of 7500 Mega Watts (MW) earmarked by the central government would be developed by the power development department within the framework articulated by the central government.
He also highlighted the "considerable work" done in the power sector in the past five decades and said that the machines of the old power houses have outlived their lives in most of the stations and require renovation and modernization.

Introducing the roadmaps for the Jammu and Kashmir state power development corporation he said that as per the load projection by the 18th electric power survey of India Jammu and Kashmir shall have a peak load of 4217 MW in 2021-22 with an energy requirement of 21884 million units.
"The execution of projects proposed in the roadmap entails an investment of more than R 1 lakh crore in all sectors. The projects in the state sector including joint venture projects would need an investment of about Rs 60,000 crore," he said.
"Based on an equity:debt ratio of 30:70, there would an equity requirement of Rs 18,000 crore and a debt of Rs 42,000 crore during the coming decade", he said.

He said that the Power Development Department (PDD) has maintainable assets valued at about Rs 7000 crore including about 48000 transformers across the state.
He said that as per the census of 2010-11, the total number of households in the state were 20, 15,088 out of which 17, 53,201 households avail electricity,
"However, 15,72,815 consumers are registered with the PDD ending 2013-14. To increase the revenue and meet out the deficit, all the illegal households consuming power without department's knowledge are being identified, booked and brought under the department's registration network," he said.