Tahir Mushtaq
JAMMU, Apr 09: Central government has expressed its unhappiness over the slow pace of implementing Restructured-Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP) in 30 identified town of the state to take measures to lower the Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses.
Sources said that Union Power Ministry had sanctioned nearly Rs 1700 crore to the government under R-APDRP in October last year and the first amount of Rs 119 crore was released to cover identified townships to strengthen the grid stations, transmission lines and feeders.
If sources are to be believed most of the funds have not been utilized to cap the losses, but diverted towards other areas forcing the centre to ask the state to follow the guidelines set for the implementation of the project.
The project was cleared by the Steering Committee of the Union Ministry of Power, which was to be implemented in two parts (A&B) to cover towns having population than 10,000 as per the census of 2001.
“The second phase of reforms may face the fate of APDRP, despite the fact that power losses have become a major drain on the resources of the state and a issue of constant friction between Planning Commission of India (PCI) and state”, said a source.
It is pertinent to mention here that under the APDRP scheme, the Union Government had already given Rs 3900 crore to the State Government from 2002 onwards for carrying out reforms in the power sector but most of it was utilized for purchase of power to meet the growing demands of electricity in the state, leaving little for carrying out reforms.
R-APDRP is phase second of the project, aimed to cap the losses suffered by Jammu and Kashmir in T&D, an area routinely even pointed out by the Planning Commission of India (PCI).
“The problem is that state is not been able to strictly implement the reforms and has made just cosmetic measures to deal with the problem. Even the e-metering project has been left midway, taken up about eight years back”, said a official.
No comments:
Post a Comment