This winter Kashmir may have witnessed very less snowfall but it has been in the grip of a severe cold wave. In the thick of Chilai Kalan, the night temperature progressively plummeted to upwards of minus 6 degree Celsius and each new night beat the previous nights record. But the exceptionally severe nature of the winter hardly made the state government more sensitive towards the needs of the people. In fact, this winter the government appeared more distant than ever. The people have been more or less been left to fend for themselves. Never mind the opposition protests in the Assembly seeking governments attention towards the erratic power supply and the other governance failures. Other than the statements by the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and some senior government functionaries assuring improvement in the supply, nothing has changed for the better on the ground.
In fact, the situation has only gotten worse. The power supply has reduced to a trickle, with long unscheduled power cuts the order of the day. Both metered as well as unmetered areas have already been slapped with a drastic load-shedding schedule. The people have hopelessly been waiting for the government to review the schedule, but nothing seems to be changing for the better. The only parallel state of affairs that comes to mind is the mid-nineties when power during a brief period of the winter was supplied for one hour a day. And ironically, this is happening at a time when the state is ruled by PDP-led coalition government, a party that in its first term in the government had ensured a steady supply of electricity through winter. And this memory was a distinct factor in the overwhelming support the party drew in Valley in the Assembly polls which catapulted it to power. However, this winter has all but wiped out this good memory. It is time the party gets its act together and redeems the governance which if we go by the winter yardstick compares with the poorest in the history of past two decades.
Speaking in the Assembly, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said that Kashmir was being supplied electricity which 50 percent more electricity than the previous years. Singh also said that efforts were being made to make Kashmir a power surplus state. He revealed that 1,401 MW projects were under execution in the state. Similarly, according to minister of state Asiea Naqash, the government can meet only 1190 MW against the peak demand of 1900 MW in Valley. In another statement, she also revealed that Rs 616-cr were being spent in 21 districts of the J&K on power augmentation, of which nine districts are from Valley. Even though such statements paint a rosy picture of the future power scenario in the state, it is difficult to be optimistic. Little has changed in regard to J&Ks power situation in the last 70 years and there is little hope that things will improve in near future. That is unless this government and the ones that follow it give up the prevailing adhocist approach for a long term policy which exploits and builds on the states power resources.
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