Residents of several areas decry delay in installation of insulated power cables

Srinagar, Nov 28: Despite tall claims of authorities to install Aerial Bundled (AB) cable to combat power theft in Kashmir, residents of several areas said work on the project is going on at a snail’s pace.

Several locals of Iqbal Abad area of Bemina told news agency Kashmir News Observer that the installation of Aerial Bundled (AB) cables in the area was going on since March this year. “There seems to be no progress further since then.”

“The installation of Aerial Bundled (AB) cable has been under progress since March this year. All these months, residents pressed them to complete the project but to no avail. The area was already covered with prepaid smart meters last year on conductor wires,” said one of the locals.

“For the last four days, we were without electricity for day and night,” they said.

The residents said that once they resume power in the evening, some fault starts developing—plunging them into darkness all these days. “We expected PDD Assistant Executive Engineer Bemina should have addressed the issue after bringing into his notice too.”

“Load distribution on feeders is such that one feeder supplies power to above 40 houses in our neighborhood, resulting in frequent faults,” they said adding “We are paying our power bills but it is the power department which is troubling us. Our grievances are not being redressed.”

In the meantime, residents of Safa Kadal area said that they were facing major unscheduled power-cuts especially in the night hours.

“Despite the ongoing power curtailment of nearly five hours, we are facing the major unscheduled power-cuts especially in the night hours.”

“There seems to be no proper mechanism of PDD in providing us the electricity as per the power curtailment schedule,” they said

Meanwhile, an official of PDD said, “We are working round the clock to install AB cables.”

He said, “As of now, under Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), PDD was investing over Rs 5000 crores to address the problem of electricity cables.” “We are upgrading the electricity wires to insulated cables and we are upgrading our transformers too,” the official said.