Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has ordered the release of 50,000 new agriculture pump-set connections by March 31, 2019, to take their total to one lakh.
In a teleconference with the officials of the Energy Department on Wednesday, Mr. Naidu instructed the power utilities to provide high quality and reliable power during daytime to the pump-sets.
The subsidy being borne by the government is put at ₹6,030 crore. Mr. Naidu said Andhra Pradesh had become a role model for others in the implementation of welfare schemes for farmers, which included waiver of farm loans, free power for pump-sets, input subsidy, and tractors and agriculture tools at subsidised rates.
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“We have achieved 17.76 % GVA growth in the farm sector in 2017-18 against the national average of 6.32%. No State in the country has achieved such a record. We have targeted 22.66 % growth rate in 2018-19. On completion of Polavaram , the agriculture sector will see a drastic change in the future,” Mr. Naidu said.
He also directed the power utilities to expedite installation of energy- efficient pump-sets in the place of obsolete and inefficient ones and promote renewable energy.
Energy Minister K. Kala Venkata Rao said the government provided subsidy amounting to ₹4,937 crore to SPDCL and ₹1,094 crore to EPDCL for 2018-19 to compensate for the revenue loss on account of supply of free power to agriculture.
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A total of 4,0681 new energy-efficient pump-sets had been installed so far by the discoms at a cost of ₹163 crore (₹40,000 per pump-set) under the agriculture demand-side management project.
Advisor K. Ranganatham, Principal Secretary (energy) Ajay Jain and AP-Genco MD K.Vijayanand were among those present.