Amid a biting cold wave, COPD patients struggle for oxygen; PDP’s Alam demands 24/7 electricity as an essential service
Srinagar : Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP) on Tuesday expressed serious concern over the worsening power scenario in Kashmir valley amid the prevailing intense cold wave, terming the government’s indifferent attitude towards the crises deeply alarming.
In a statement issued here, PDP General Secretary and former legislator Mohammad Khurshid Alam said that the erratic power supplies with prolonged cuts has left the people of Kashmir valley helpless with patients in dire need of oxygen struggling for their lives. He added that given the post-COVID scenario when pulmonary diseases have witnessed an unprecedented spike, the oxygen concentrators are required by a majority of the patients in Kashmir. “Electricity is essential for these machines to operate. What we are seeing at present is the prolonged curtailment of electricity stretching from 8 to 9 hours every day. We have received reports of many people losing lives as their oxygen concentrators couldn’t function due to erratic electricity. The government is playing with people’s lives,” Alam said.
He added that in spite of the claims of the government that smart metering will ease out the burden, the situation on the ground is quite contrary.”One on hand, people are slapped with heavy electricity bills and on the other hand the facility is denied to them when they need it the most. The dispensation is scamming people and this is what we call a vindictive approach of the dispensation against the helpless people of this land,” Alam said, urging the government to treat supply of electricity as an emergency service especially during the pervasive cold wave in Kashmir during which the pro-longed cuts could endanger people’s lives .
“The Jammu and Kashmir administration must take up the matter with the union government on war-footing bases and prioritize round the clock power supplies to Kashmir valley during the ongoing winters- this is not a luxury but a dire necessity for the people of this troubled land to stay alive- sooner it happens the better,” Alam said.
The PDP general secretary, while reacting to the reports of unprecedented and ungovernable hike in essential commodities including the vegetables and traditional bread, said that the erstwhile state had a fully functional wing in the department of food supplies and consumer affairs that was mandated to regulate and monitor the prices of essential commodities. That wing, according to Alam, was shut by the administration two years ago, giving a free hand for illegal profiteering with no checks and no regulations.
Alam urged the government to make the wing mandated to monitor the prices of essential commodities in Jammu and Kashmir functional again so that the poor and economically deprived people aren’t allowed to be exploited by the black marketers and those taking undue advantage of non- non-existential monitoring system.
