Power ministry tries to restore power in flood hit areas of Jammu & Kashmir

The Ministry of Power has taken a slew of measures to restore the heavily damaged power transmission lines & distribution system in flood hit areas of Jammu & Kashmir . 

In the Jammu region out of damaged seventeen 33/11KV Sub Stations , Fourteen have been restored which are feeding important area like Beli Gulaba, Malhouri, Mandi , MES and Rajouri . Efforts are on to restore the remaining 3 lines soon. 

While in Srinagar area, 132 KV Sub Station at Bemina , which is very vital for power supply to the valley , was restored on the 16th of this month. Out of thirty six 33/11 KV Sub Stations which were damaged due to the floods , many have been restored. These distribution sub stations feed areas like Peerbagh, Silk Factory, Badami Bagh and Karan Nagar. In the valley, power demand up to 704 MV has been restored which is almost 88 percent of the normal load. 

In order to augment the efforts for faster restoration of power , states like Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka,and many private agencies responded to the call by the Secretary (Power) and offered their help in the form power distribution materials . 

Disruption of electricity was severe in most of the areas of J&K, which witnessed disastrous floods in its history of last six decades. There was huge damage of high tension, low tension lines, transformers and Sub Stations which were either submerged or washed away. The Union Minister of State (I/C) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, Shri Piyush Goyal instructed the senior officers of Power sector CPSUs to rush to J&K immediately and assess the situation. For immediate restoration of power, the Ministry of Power authorized POWERGRID, as its nodal agency to assist J&K Power Department (JKPDD) in restoration of transmission lines and distribution system. Emergency Restoration System (ERS) was immediately deployed by POWERGRID for four 132 kV lines in Jammu region and for one 132 kV line in Srinagar region. For distribution lines and substations, team of POWERGRID along with JKPDD started working simultaneously. Control rooms were opened at Ministry of Power, Delhi and sub-control rooms at POWERGRID offices at Gurgaon, Jammu & Wagoora. Subsequently teams were mobilized to identify the power disrupted areas with priorities for faster restoration of damaged power lines. The Minister also gave directions to dispatch 10,000 solar lamps with chargers immediately for distribution in flood affected areas. 

Coal India Limited was also asked to dispatch heavy duty dewatering pumps to the affected areas.