Last Updated on December 20, 2021 at 1:37 pm
It was since 28 hours when when Nitin Kumar Sharma, a resident of Janipur of Jammu was waiting for restoration of electricity. At around 11 pm on Sunday, Kumar heaved a sign of relief when he saw an electric bulb illuminating in his house.
Kumar was worried about his ailing father, Shakti Kumar Sharma who needed electricity to start his nebulizer machine, that turns medicine into mist, used to provide relief from asthma and other bronchial diseases. Earlier Nitin had inverter backup to use the machine but he would have to rush his father to hospital had the Indian army not restored power, after the inverter battery had died.
There were thousands of people like Nitin in entire Jammu and Kashmir who were relentlessly waiting for power to be restored that was snapped due to the strike of Power Development Department (PDD) employees who did not care even about children and elderly during this bone chilling cold and pandemic.
The PDD employees chose to torture the common people of Jammu and Kashmir only to raise their demand against privatization of the department. While India is a democratic country and everyone has the right to raise their demands, the timing of the strike where over 20,000 electricity department employees went on strike raises eyebrows.
Due to intense cold in entire J&K, the demand for power had already increased and owing to pandemic again raging its head, it was necessary that hospitals and health centers have proper electricity without any cuts. However PDD employees without thinking about common people went on a strike as a blackmailing tactic to pressurize the government.
It was only after severe criticism of the government led by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha that sense prevailed and Divisional Commissioner of Jammu, Raghav Langer requested the Indian army to help the administration that had literally collapsed due to the striking employees. While the PDD employees had gone on strike since Friday, the government bothered to care about people of J&K only on Sunday.
It was only the army that entered the scene and restored electricity in most parts of Jammu division by late Sunday. The work done by army was appreciated on social media by people who were eagerly waiting for restoration of electricity. Blackmailing tactics of PDD employees were also smashed by the soldiers of Indian army who came out for help of people of J&K while the government slept.
The disaster that was faced by Union Territory of J&K is not only the responsibility of PDD employees but also the administration of the UT as well as the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
