Snowfall in upper reaches, rains in plain areas of Rajouri, Poonch districts continue

Rajouri, Feb 19: The upper reaches of Rajouri and Poonch districts received snowfall, while the plain areas rainfall for the second consecutive day today.

Power supply in many parts of Rajouri district is badly affected due to rainfall and around 800 Domestic Transformers (DTs) are without power supply with 30 villages have plunged into the darkness.

Bad weather conditions in areas of Rajouri and Poonch started in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday as per the forecast issued by the concerned government agency.

The snow and rains have resulted in further decline in the temperature increasing cold wave conditions and most of the people preferred to stay indoor while thin movement of vehicles was witnessed on roads.

Besides, power supply in a number of areas in the region is affected due to faults in both High Tension (HT) as well as Low Tension (LT) electricity transmission lines. People living in these electricity affected areas have expressed their anger among power crisis informing that power supply in many areas is affected from last more than 20 hours. The locals informed that in many villages falling under Kotranka subdivision of Rajouri district, power supply is affected and people are facing severe hardships.

"In many areas electricity is affected and life has come to a standstill in this bone chilling winter condition, locals of the area. " There is no electricity in most parts of Budhal since today morning," a local political leader leader Waqar Lone informed.

Other people of electricity affected areas claimed that electricity in a number of localities is affected for more than 20 hours while heavy forced curtailment is going on in all other areas.

On being contacted, Executive Engineer Jammu Power Distribution Corporation Ltd, Rajouri division, Mohammad Rashid informed that around 700 to 800 domestic transformers in the district are presently without electricity supply due to which the areas where electricity is supplied through these domestic transformers are affected.

He said that most of the affected areas are in Kotranka, Darhal, Thanamandi sub divisions in the district.

He added that that there are 4571 Domestic Transformers (DTs) in the district out of which around 800 are presently affected that account for around 15-20 percent area.

He said that electricity in these areas is affected due to multiple regions that include faults in Low Tension (LT) transmission lines, 33 KV High Tension (HT) lines as well as main 132 KV (HT) feeder lines.

"Although our ground staff is working to repair all these faults and to restore electricity in the factory areas but continuous heavy rainfall as well as snowfall in upper reaches is becoming a big hurdle and the main electricity restoration work will only be taken up after improvement in weather conditions." he added.