Owais Ayoub
Bandipora 18 January (KNB): The residents of Naninara area of North Kashmir’s Sumbal Monday protested against the Power Development Department’s (PDDs) unscheduled power cuts in their areas and hiking in the power bills.
As per locals, the protestors, mostly women, of the village blocked the Sumbal-Bandipora road and rendered their voice heard on the issues of unscheduled power cuts and hiking in the electricity bills.
While talking to the Kashmir News Bureau, the residents said, “The department is not putting in place any permanent solution to the issue of inconsistent power supply. As Kashmir is going through the severe winter cold, we have been neglected by the department because our continuous demands are going unheeded.”
“Given the temperature across Kashmir going subzero, we are forced to live without electricity. We will continue to protest in future if our demands are not fulfilled by the PDD,” said one of the protestors.
However, the PDD official said, “The reason for power cuts is the overload which is due to people’s negligence of not using electricity wisely,” adding that the transformer will be installed in the area to avoid the issue of power cuts in the area. (KNB)