By Er Dharam Pal Balgotra and Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat

Ladakh gets almost as much sunshine as Rajasthan, about 7.5 kWh per square metre a day. Jaipur has turned that sunshine into 5,420 MW of solar power under PM-KUSUM. Gujarat has added 3,850 MW, and other states together have added 17,960 MW. Jammu and Kashmir has added nothing.

The reason comes down to one DISCOM official who rejected a solar tariff approved by the regulator, blocking investment, costing jobs and shutting J&K out of a major solar opportunity.

In 2021-22, the regulator, JERC, issued a statutory order approving solar power at Rs 4.65 per unit, and the official rejected it alone, with no written justification and no committee approval, in direct violation of Section 86 of the Electricity Act 2003. 

Four years later, the bill stands at Rs 1,296 crore, 900 jobs that were never created and Rs 500 crore of investment that went to other states.

The JK VIKSIT 2047 plan begins with this failure. 

It calls on the Lieutenant Governor, the Chief Minister, all opposition parties and the BJP’s Leader of Opposition to put political differences aside and work towards J&K’s development. 

Before any project moves forward, it proposes two key reforms. 

An Enquiry Committee chaired by a retired High Court judge, with retired IAS, regulatory and technical experts, would identify who decided, establish the violation, quantify the loss and recommend action. A gazette-notified seven-member Tariff Approval Committee would need five votes to reject any JERC tariff. 

The plan argues that without accountability, officials will continue to exercise unchecked power, putting J&K’s development at risk.

Some of the future has already come. The four-lane Banihal-Qazigund tunnel keeps vehicles moving, and the Vande Bharat Express, running through the new USBRL tunnels, has joined Kashmir to the railway network for the first time. 

The plan adds a Dual Maglev. The 580 km Katra-Delhi line, through Jammu, Pathankot, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Ambala, would reach New........

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