Disconnection drives will stem power theft, stabilise curtailment plan: KPDCL

Srinagar, Nov 24: The Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (KPDCL) Friday said that disconnection drives would stem power theft and stabilise the curtailment plan.

A statement of the KPDCL issued here said that it collected a revenue of Rs 6.63 crore on Thursday.

It said that the corporation’s inspections to check power pilferage breached the 1000 mark with penalties imposed to the tune of Rs 7.95 lakh on Thursday.

Elaborating on details, a KPDCL spokesperson said that out of the 1017 inspections carried out in the Kashmir division, 161 were conducted in Circle I Srinagar, 182 in Circle II Srinagar, 301 in Circle Ganderbal, 147 in Circle Pulwama, 66 in Circle Bijbehara, and 160 in Circle Sopore.

Around 245 KW load was added across 6 Circles of the corporation during the drives.

A penalty of Rs 7.95 lakh was imposed across all 19 electric divisions on those found hooking wires on bare conductors and bypassing the meters.

Meanwhile, 52 Domestic Transformers (DTs) were also reported damaged on Thursday due to overloading, down from 64 reported on Wednesday.

The spokesman said that another 1048 domestic, commercial, and industrial connections were also disconnected for non-payment of energy dues which were pending for more than three months.

This includes 731 domestic, 266 commercial, and 31 industrial consumers.

The spokesman said that the inspection and disconnection drives against power theft and defaulting consumers would help the corporation stick to the curtailment schedule.

While KPDCL received 52 damaged DTs in its various workshops on Thursday, 61 transformers were also repaired for replacement, to comply with the stipulated timelines fixed by the government.

“A total of 74 transformers are in different stages of repair, 27 others are in ovens at Central Workshop Pampore,” the spokesman said quoting Executive Engineer, CWS, Pampore.

Expressing concern over the repeat damage of repaired transformers, the spokesman urged the consumers to use power judiciously within their agreed load, failing which the DTs would get damaged again, causing inconvenience to genuine consumers.

“Cases of repeat damage to repaired transformers have been reported from the Central Workshop at Pampore and a few of the divisional-level workshops. This trend will affect the replacement timeline fixed by the government,” the spokesman warned while advocating strict adherence to the load capacity of DTs.

KPDCL advised all domestic, commercial, and industrial consumers to pay their pending energy dues or face permanent disconnection.

KPDCL collected Rs 6.63 crore as pending energy dues on Thursday from the consumers.

With the corporation going into overdrive, the revenue realisation figures are likely to go up further in the coming few weeks.