Govt to unbundle power dept: CM
Kumar Rakesh
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 27
The government is likely to go for major reforms in the power sector by unbundling the transmission and distribution of the power sector to bring the struggling department back on the tracks and offering a public issue of Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation to raise much-needed money.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said today that these were viable options to deal with problems bedeviling the power sector and gave a detailed reply to opposition members’ charge, with even some ruling alliance members expressing concern, that the government had forfeited its resources to central agencies like the NHPC while it suffered from an acute power shortage.

He said the transmission and distribution losses in the state were a whopping 72 per cent and the government could get back only Rs 750 crore through bill payments against Rs 2200 crore it had spent on purchasing power.

The CM said the Baglihar project had been handed over to the NHPC for only two years on a contractual basis because the successive state governments could not train their staff and raise resources required to run a massive project like Baglihar.

He said raising money by selling shares of corporations in the open market could solve the state’s financial woes to an extent and the JKSPDC seemed to be the only government enterprise capable of attracting investors. “Much smaller companies raise huge money from the market so why not us. We need investment in the power sector,” he said.

Omar Abdullah said it would not be proper to blame the Indus Water Treaty, which restricted the use of rivers flowing through the state by India, for the state’s power woes as they had been unable to utilise available resources. “We have a potential of generating 14000 MW but have realised only 12 per cent of it,” he said.

He said his government was working to generate 4000 MW and these projects would take years to complete. He said the government had entered into MoUs with outside agencies for only three of these projects, which would generate over 1100 MW. “It would be wonderful if we could raise all generation plants on our own, but we do not have money. It is better to have something than nothing,” he said.