Omar underlines power as jugular vein of economy

JAMMU: Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah Saturday said that his Government is striving for engulfing the gap between availability of electricity and its need in the State by making necessary dent in both generation and distribution fronts.
Underlining power as a jugular vein of economy, the Chief Minister said that the holistic and integrated development of the State along with economic betterment of people is directly dependent on the self-reliance in power generation and its leakage proof distribution to the people.
“While government has launched ambitious power generation projects to harness 4000 to 5000 MWs of electricity in next 6 years, Rs. 1900 crore upgradation and reformative project for distribution and transmission of electricity is under execution. The scheme is aimed at bringing e-governance, digitalization of service, construction of data banks, application of modern IT techniques, introduction of reforms and reducing power theft and leakages to zero degree”, he said. He added that construction of 28 Grid Stations, 45 new Transmission Circuits, Data Centres and other hi-tech initiatives are part of this programme under execution under RAPDRP.
Inaugurating Rs. 17.74 crores Power Grid Station at Katra this morning, the Chief Minister said that people’s cooperation holds the key in making government efforts on power sector a success to change the grim scenario in this respect into a positive and progressive phase.
The Chief Minister said that one can easily understand how difficult is it for a government to carry on development process on fast track and in a comprehensive manner when it has to bear over Rs. 2000 crore annual losses on the supply of electricity. He asked the people to lend their hand to the Government to revolutionize the power sector in the State ensuring economic betterment and vast job-market for youth.
The Chief Minister said that third party monitoring by NABCOMS and McKinsey initiated by his Government to ascertain the physical and financial status of public service infrastructure being raised under PMGSY and in power sector would at one hand bring in transparency to a greater extent and on the other remove the bottlenecks in timeline completion of the projects.
“We are on threshold of entering into a new era of modernized, e-governed, data-based and service efficient power transmission and distribution in the State where generation and availability will match each other”, he said adding that reformative and leakage proof power supply to commercial establishments and the households as per their requirement would be its benchmark.
Minister of State for Power, Shabir Ahmad Khan, Parliament Member, Lal Singh, Commissioner Secretary Power Development, Basharat Ahmad Dhar, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Pawan Kotwal, Chief Engineers, District Development Commissioner and other officers were present on the occasion.
The 50 MVA, 132/33 KV capacity Katra Grid Station project also includes construction of 22.60 kilometre transmission line from Brun to Katra which has been completed and commissioned at a cost of about Rs. 10 crores. The commissioning of this project would improve and augment the electric supply facility in the holy town, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine and Reasi district as a whole. It will also relieve the load on Jajjar Kotli and Udhampur Grid Stations. It will benefit roughly about one lakh population in district Reasi.
The construction of the Grid Station started in 2010 and has been completed in less than two years on Turnkey basis.
The Chief Minister inspected Jajjar bridge near Jajjar Kotli enroute Katra and directed the Managing Director JKPCC for speeding up the work on the bridge ensuring its timeline completion.