As the farming community in the State is gearing up to take up cultivation of Rabi crops with the help of improved groundwater table, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has directed the power utilities to give power connections to all farmers who have applied for it. Stating that irregularities had taken up while sanctioning farm power connections during the the last five years and a large number of farmers were denied the new connections in the past citing various reasons. However, all the applications for new connections should be cleared in the next seven months, the Chief Minister told the official of power utilities at a meeting here on Tuesday.
A total of 97,000 applications for new connections were piled up over the last five years as the power utilities had given limited number of connections every year, the Chief Minister stated. Officials of the two power distribution companies explained to the Chief Minister that about Rs.600 crore would be required to be spent on strengthening the distribution network to clear all the pending applications.
CMD of TS Genco and Transco D. Prabhakar Rao, CMDs of TS-SPDCL and TS-NPDCL G. Raghuma Reddy and A. Gopal Rao, respectively, and other attended the meeting. The Chief Minister felt that irregularities, including corruption, were taking place since connections were not given as per the demand. The farmers should get new connections without recommendation from anybody or without paying any graft, he said.
In addition to the existing 97,000 list of pending connections another 20,000 to 30,000 applications could be received for new connections in the coming months and necessary arrangements should be made by procuring required material to clear all the connections. He stated that seven months time was being given to the power utilities since procurement of material and laying of new lines would take at least some time. He directed the authorities to prepare a schedule indicating when the new connections would be given by displaying notices in gram panchayat offices and also write to individual farmers who had applied for the new connections. He told the District Collectors to supervise the exercise. The Chief Minister announced that all arrangements were in place to give nine-hour power supply to farm sector for the Rabi season and the infrastructure was ready to meet the demand up to 10,000 MW by spending Rs.2,450 crore on new sub-stations, transformers and new lines. He felt that dependency on borewells would come down in the States once all the irrigation projects were completed. Officials explained to the Chief Minister that there were 5.46 lakh dedicated transformers for farm power supply in the State and 4 per cent rolling stock was also being maintained.
Farmers should get new connections without recommendation from anybody or without paying any graft.
K. Chandrasekhar Rao,
Chief Minister.
