Revenue losses to J&K

Why PDD failed to recover Rs 1000 crore from Govt. departments

Tahir Mushtaq

JAMMU, June 28: While the Power Development Department (PDD)claims that pending electricity bills is leading to revenue losses in Jammu and Kashmir, but the department has failed to recover nearly Rs 1000 from various government departments and politicians in the state.

Sources said that despite tall claims by the government and even Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather from time to time that a special drive has been launched to recover the dues, but so far very few departments have cleared their bills, which runs into crores of rupees.

Even recently government has also submitted a detailed data about the government officers, MLAs, and Ministers who are major defaulters in the state.

According to the official records, PHE Department has an pending amount of Rs 362 crore while Medical Education Department is a defaulter of Rs 23 crore. Likewise Jammu and Kashmir Police and Education Department Rs 6 crore to PDD whereas Forest Department Rs 2 crore, Director General Prisons Rs 2 crore, Technical Education Rs 2 crore, Department of Tourism Rs 20 crore and Roads & Buildings Department Rs 30 crore.

Records elaborates that the minister and bureaucrats of the state included. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, has outstanding of Rs 83000 while Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand has Rs 5.65 lakh. Minister for Tourism, Rigzin Jora with Rs 10.16 lakh and Chief Secretary with Rs 9 lakh comes in the defaulter list.

Moreover, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly has an outstanding of Rs 51,000 while Former Chief Minister, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed has Rs 3 lakh, Minister for Social Welfare Sakina Itoo Rs 8 lakh.

In recent past the electricity situation in Jammu and worsened and the state of affairs is that in the 100 per cent metered areas are not better than the non-metered areas as PDD has been resorting to power curtailments after every hour despite the fact that areas having all the connections metered are entitled for round-the-clock electricity supply.

"We have failed to understand what improvement PDD has brought by borrowing additional electricity from the Northern Grid", people said, adding "we are still facing the situation which was prevailing prior to the announcement of Chief Minister about according sanction to the PDD for getting more electricity from Northern Grid".

When contacted, Chief Engineer, M&RE Jammu, Shahnaz Goni attributed the frequent power cuts to the warnings from the Northern Region Load Dispatch Centre and State Load Dispatch Centre about keeping loads within stipulated limits especially under low frequency conditions.