J&K's Power Tariff Hike is A Crisis of Governance, Not Just Generation

Public anger rises every time Jammu and Kashmir's power tariffs rise. The reasons are genuine. A hike in electricity charges cuts directly into the income of every consumer, whether the connection is domestic or commercial.

The government's latest increase of 6.83 per cent was no exception, triggering heated debate across society and on social media. Yet the outrage, however justified, often misses the broader picture.

J&K is a land of extraordinary hydropower wealth, yet its own consumers pay a premium for electricity generated on their own soil, exported through the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and sold back to them at commercial rates. This tariff hike is not simply a story about rising costs. It is a story of decades of policy complacency, discriminatory governance, squandered hydropower assets, and political leaders who inflame public anger for votes while quietly abandoning their own promises.

Most residents of Jammu and Kashmir hold a simple, intuitive belief that this is a land of abundant water, home to some of the country's major hydropower projects, generating enormous quantities of electricity. Much of this power, they note, is transmitted outside the Union Territory through NHPC and sold back to local consumers at higher rates. On this logic, a government sitting atop such natural wealth should surely be able to offer its own people cheap, stable power for domestic use.

This is an understandable and genuine expectation, but it overlooks the tangled policy, financial and technical realities that actually govern how tariffs are set and where the revenue goes.

Governance by Complacency

The fact is that J&K has never had a clear, coherent policy governing the generation, transmission and distribution of its own electricity, even though the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) is formally responsible for determining tariffs for JPDCL and KPDCL, and the UT's two distribution utilities.

Successive governments have chosen complacency over reform, well aware that any tariff increase invites strong condemnation from every section of society. This complacency is nothing new: a rise in electricity prices led to widespread protests in downtown Srinagar as far back as 1988, and again during Sadiq's tenure as Chief Minister. Fear of public backlash, far more than sound planning, has shaped power policy for decades.

Uneven Systems, Slow Reform

Distribution has been just as inconsistent as pricing policy. Power supply across J&K has never been regulated equally. It has always varied from area to area and locality to locality.

In the past, some households had metered connections while others paid flat rates fixed by the erstwhile Power Development Department (PDD), and power theft was common. There are, admittedly, signs of change. Smart meters have been installed and cables laid in Srinagar and Jammu, with the process now extending to other districts. Losses from theft and transmission are reportedly declining, and revenue collection has shown a notable upward trend. These are genuine improvements but have come too late, and remain uneven.

The Politics of Double Speak

Much of the blame, however, lies not with bureaucracy but with a political leadership that has perfected the art of saying one thing in power and another out of it. Kashmir's political parties have long misled the electorate with hollow slogans and false promises, particularly during election campaigns - promises that are rarely, if ever, fulfilled.

Autonomy or the revival of Article 370 and 35-A have all served, at different times, as unrealistic and unachievable pledges made simply to win the voters' confidence and their votes. Some politicians went further still, waving the green handkerchief and promising “Pakistani salt” - a nostalgic invocation of the rock salt once traded freely along routes to Rawalpindi before Partition - to hoodwink people into voting for them.

I appreciate a recent article that recalled an anecdote from the writer's father: in the politically charged 1960s and 70s, a towering leader once told a public gathering at Eidgah, Srinagar, that if linemen arrived with ladders to disconnect power supply, people should simply pull the ladders away. Such has long been the character of our leadership, and the pattern has not changed.

Before the 2024 elections, leaders of a particular party used similar language, urging residents of downtown Srinagar to strongly resist the installation of smart meters.

This is the sad story of our politics. Leaders who incite people to raise their voices even against the PDD's rightful, lawful actions. How can PDD officials be expected to carry out their duties when they face the wrath of provoked citizens simply for doing their jobs in the field? The fault does not lie with ordinary people. It lies with politicians who politicise every government decision, however justified, while they are out of power but fail to fulfil the very same hollow promises once they form the government themselves.

A Hike and a Broken Promise

Raising tariffs to cover a genuine revenue deficit is not, in itself, an indefensible decision. What makes it unethical is that the same government that raised prices by 6.83 per cent. This hike has shocked consumers, particularly the economically poor, and has also failed to honour the election manifesto promise of 200 units of free power to every household. A pledge made to win votes cannot simply be shelved once power changes hands, especially while consumers are being asked to pay more.

Even JERC itself has raised an uncomfortable question: if the revenue deficit stems from transmission losses caused by inefficient management within the power distribution companies, why should that deficit be recovered from consumers through higher tariffs, rather than from the companies responsible for the inefficiency?

Squandered Hydropower Wealth

The same complacency defines how J&K has handled its own power-generation assets. The power ministry has rarely bothered to follow up on the terms of the MOUs it signed with NHPC and other companies for hydropower projects built across the UT.

Take the Salal project, for instance. The very MOU signed between the state and NHPC is, by the admission of a power minister during the PDP-Congress coalition government, neither available nor traceable in the secretariat's records, leaving the project's status impossible to determine. Under the terms of that agreement, NHPC was meant to hand the project back to the state once its costs had been fully recovered.

The story of the Baglihar project's first phase is even more troubling. Once construction was complete, Farooq Abdullah, the then Chief Minister, handed the project over to NHPC, citing the inability of J&K's own engineers to maintain it. Such a justification served political convenience far more than it served the interests of the people of J&K.

Who Really Pays

For the wealthy and the upper middle class, a tariff hike is an inconvenience. For the poor and those living below the poverty line, it is a genuine burden. Building new power projects will do little to ease this crisis for local consumers, since most of the electricity generated continues to be transmitted out of the UT.

What J&K actually needs are power projects modelled on those in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where tariffs are reported to be lower than what J&K's own consumers pay, despite comparable hydropower potential.

Nor is there much reason for optimism that this hike will deliver what it promises. Even in areas where smart meters have already been installed, residents continue to face both scheduled and unscheduled power cuts.

Until J&K confronts the deeper failures of policy, distribution and political accountability, tariff hikes will keep arriving without ever bringing the stable, affordable power its people were promised.