Srinagar: This picture has gone viral on Facebook and it tells us why a number of transformers in the Valley get damaged during winters.

A paramilitary trooper places four electric boilers in four separate buckets.

With Jammu and Kashmir witnessing highest number of damaged transformers annually across India, the state government has sought the Central government’s assistance for repairing of these transformers, a news report published in September last year said.

The report further said that during 2011-12, around 6000 distribution transformers were damaged across the state while their number reached over 9000 annually for the last three years.

The main reason for unprecedented damages of transformers is overloading that the Power Development Department (PDD) has failed to check.

The picture, whose veracity couldn’t be confirmed independently, shows a paramilitary trooper in some place in the Valley placing four electric boilers in four separate buckets. An electric boiler consumes around 1.5KW of electricity.

The netizens blamed this practice of paramilitary troops as the main reason of damage to transformers in the Valley. There were, however, counter arguments given by others to bail them out.

A Facebook user commented on the picture, “The question needs to be asked that why is he doing it. His government has failed him too for not providing to him enough resources to take a hot shower and since when it is okay for a local guy to steal power and not him. It just tells us, our society has a long way to go to behave as responsible citizens and respect the law.”

Another wrote, “Every military camp is fully metered and lakhs of rupees are paid to state government as electric bill every month by every unit in the Valley.”