Initiating an important step towards power reforms in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Monday launched smart meters in Jammu city.
The areas with smart meters will be made curtailment free along with the supply of quality power to the end-user, said Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha while launching a visionary project to install smart meters across the UT.
From today, 6603 smart meter households connected to four feeders of Jammu will receive quality electricity, announced the Lt Governor.
"I appeal to the people to install smart meters and help the administration in controlling theft and reducing wasteful consumption", he said.
The move will enable consumers to monitor their power consumption behavior and regulate it accordingly. The pre-paid feature, to be enabled in the coming days, will provide desired flexibility in the consumption of electricity to the consumers, he said and added that similar arrangements are being emulated in Kashmir as well.
Previous regimes ignored the power sector
The Lieutenant Governor said that for the last seven decades, no credible efforts were made to increase neither the power capacity nor the transmission and distribution capacity was strengthened.
The present government, for the last one and half years, is making sustained efforts to ensure reliable power supply to consumers, besides reducing transmission losses and improving distribution efficiency.
Work to install smart meters intensified in Kashmir Valley
After involving religious leaders to frustrate evil designs of anti-social elements, the campaign to install smart meters has been intensified in Kashmir Valley also.
In a meeting held in February it was informed that under smart metering project Srinagar Phase-I, out of 57750 meters, 11348 have been installed till now. It was further informed that 15000 meters will be installed in a month.
Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses in J&K are the highest in the whole country and the Centre has repeatedly reprimanded the successive governments for their failure to reduce these losses.
Under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP) scheme, the Centre is pumping huge funds to improve power infrastructure in J&K but unlike other states and UTs, authorities have so far failed to bring required reforms in the power sector.
