Official documents reveal pending infrastructure upgrades, funding issues, lack of regional coordination
Riyaz bhat
Srinagar, Sep 01 :
In Jammu and Kashmir, real-time telemetry data continues to remain unavailable at both J&K-SLDC and Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NRLDC), raising concerns about increased risks of data breaches and other cyber threats.
According to official documents obtained by the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the NRLDC representative highlighted that “real-time telemetry data from Jammu and Kashmir remains unavailable at both J&K-SLDC and NRLDC.”
The documents state that a POWERGRID representative informed that, previously, there were some fund issues at the state level, but recently an amount of Rs 25 crore (approx.) out of Rs 34 crore (approx.) has been received by POWERGRID through a central scheme fund.
They mention that the pending work of OPGW (35 out of 76) is scheduled to commence in August 2025, with TCIL and other associated vendors engaged by POWERGRID. “RTU deliveries have also started under the ULDC Phase-III project, with the first lot dispatched and the second under inspection.”
According to the documents, MS-NRPC called for real-time telemetry from the J&K region and suggested that POWERGRID hold a bilateral meeting with J&K to ensure better coordination, plan and expedite fund utilisation, synchronise OPGW and RTU integration activities, and resolve pending issues in a time-bound manner. “No representative from J&K was present at the meeting.”
The forum’s decision states that POWERGRID shall coordinate with J&K to expedite the installation of OPGW.
Regarding redundant RTU communication for the Main and Backup RLDC, the documents mention that during the meeting, a POWERGRID representative informed the forum that several RTUs and SAS installed at substations lack sufficient free ports to accommodate additional communication channels, necessitating the upgradation of these RTUs and SAS.
It was also discussed that interoperability issues, such as SDH, MPLS, etc., need to be addressed gradually and will require time to achieve stability.
IndiGrid expressed concerns about the compatibility of legacy equipment with Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) and the potential need for hardware upgrades, as well as the necessity to define a cost recovery mechanism for TBCB substations—(KNO)