While the harsh winters are about to enter the Kashmir valley, authorities have projected a huge amount of power deficiency for the month of November,
This issue of power needs to be addressed before it will start affecting the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
As per the projections, the region is likely to face power shortage of nearly 32 percent during peak times.
This is merely not a prediction, it should be taken as a wake-up call that demands early intervention and solution that will help thousands of families to evade the bone chilling weather and darkness.
A shortfall of this scale is not simply a figure, it is a recipe for everyday chaos.
It means students trying to read under a flickering candle, hospitals running on overloaded generators, businesses losing money by the minute, and homes freezing.
For a region hoping for economic recovery and development around tourism, erratic power supply is a blow to its economy’s potential and the quality of life for its residents.
This is an event that occurs every winter, and the reasons for the annual tale of woe are as predictable as the crisis, starting with its reliance on hydropower.
Hydropower is clean, and it is the most ideal form of energy, however, it becomes a burden during the winter months as rivers reach low levels of water resulting in a reduction in generation from local projects.
This inevitable exposure to capacity shortage is further aggravated by an already dire crisis of infrastructure.
The transmission and distribution networks are old and inefficient, resulting in extremely high aggregate technical and commercial (ATC) losses in the sector.
There are euphemisms for both leakages of electricity and widespread theft of power; both penetrate and plunder the system, and financial sustainability seems a long way off. In addition, the region’s dependence on purchases from the northern grid creates many challenges.
Although a lifeline for electricity supplies, it is not foolproof; outages on the grid or transmission constraints will result in many parts of the region suffering outages in a matter of minutes.
It will take an intense multi-pronged approach, and time, to resolve the dependence on the northern grid.
The administration would need to kick-start the modernization of transmission and distribution networks, as a top priority, help divvy up the transmission losses and move either closer to financial stability, or at least operational stability.
This is the greatest step towards the future of cost and operational stability.
At the same time, the commissioning of solar power projects needs to move forcefully ahead, primarily in Ladakh, with limited dependence on broader renewables as an option to end over-reliance on hydropower.
