Srinagar: On 4th of June 2018, Sunil Sharma the then Minister for Power in the PDP-BJP coalition government announced, “I am hosting (first-ever) global investor meet for harnessing the huge hydro power potential of J&K”.
Two-and-half years down the line no global investor has come and Kashmir “scandalously” remains one of the energy-deprived hotspots in the subcontinent.
Interestingly, the water resources of the erstwhile state continue exclusively to be kept open for exploitation by National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), a profitable hydropower public sector enterprise of the Government of India.
Instead of following a policy of creating its indigenous hydle power assets, the rulers have religiously followed a “guide book” of endowing the water resources of Jammu and Kashmir to the NHPC.