Mudassir Ahmad
SRINAGAR: In a move to reduce the power consumption of Jammu and Kashmir, government is going to make replacement of incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent lamps with energy-efficient LED lamps in all households of the state.
The state is energy deficient and has to rely on power purchases from Northern region grid to meet its requirements especially during winters when demand peaks and its own generation reduces drastically. It is also facing a revenue realization gap of around Rs 3000 crore annually.
Now with the initiative of LED distribution among consumers, officials said it will help to reduce power consumption in the state.
Under this programme which is likely to be started from this year, officials said the power development department will distribute 80 lakh LED bulbs in the state which will help to reduce peak demand in the state by about 250 MW and will save energy consumption by 260 mKWh translating into an annual saving of about Rs 130 crore.
“Government will provide 5 LED lamps of 9W each, to every registered consumer at Rs 20 per lamp whose market value is Rs 300 to 400 each. At the request of consumer more than 5 LEDs will also be made available at a cost of around Rs 100,” the official said. He said the initiative will also make people aware about benefits of energy efficiency measures.
LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are semiconductors that make old-fashioned light bulbs (incandescent) and even energy savers (compact fluorescents) look incredibly inefficient.
J&K has purchased power around Rs 30,000 crore during last one decade and there had been a revenue realization gap of Rs 3,000 annually thus putting a huge burden on the state exchequer. “So far the government has failed to reduce the gap of revenue realization. The LED distribution is one of the initiatives which would help the state to reduce power consumption,” the official said.
The PDD's liabilities have also increased to over Rs 7,000 crore due to increasing gap in revenue realization by the power development department.
As per the data, the state government has spent Rs 1355 crore on power purchase in 2006-07, Rs 1750 crore in 2007-08, Rs 2034 in 2008-09, during 2009-10 Rs 1997, Rs 2200 in 2010-2011.
In 2011-2012, the data reveals that Rs 3000 crore was spent on power purchase while in 2012-13 the powerbill for the State was Rs 3870 crores, Rs 3945.85 in 2013-14, in 2014-2015 Rs 4719.60 and in 2015-16, Rs around 4800 crore.
J&K has a potential of hydroelectricity of 20,000 MWs of which the Centre owned NHPC is generating 2009 MW from its seven power projects of which the state gets a share of 13 percent. While the state owned corporation (SPDC) generate around 800 MWs of electricity here.
