Hyderabad: The Telangana state government is all set to create history by providing 24x7 uninterrupted, free power to farmers across the state on a trial basis from Monday.
The trial will be held for five or six days, and the scheme will be launched formally from March-April 2018.
Farmers are currently getting nine hours of free power. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said on Sunday that his “dream” of supplying quality and uninterrupted power to farmers at no cost was on the verge of becoming a reality.
The Chief Minister met TS Genco CMD D. Prabhakar Rao on Sunday and told him to ensure that the 24-hour free power supply begins by March-April 2018.
Mr Prabhakar Rao said that when the experimental supply is started on Monday night, he wants estimates to be done and feedback monitored in all the districts, all sub stations, divisions, transformer-wise and every minute should be monitored for the next five to six days. There will be a review of the six-day performance to see how 24-hour free supply can be sustained on a permanent basis. Though some states are supplying free power to farmers, nowhere is the supply for the full 24 hours.
TS needs 2,000 MW more for free supply
After the formation of Telangana state in 2014, the government had extended the six-hour free power supply to nine hours.
As the Chief Minister ordered 24-hours free power later, the power department has spent '12,000 crore to strengthen the distribution and supply network. Round-the-clock power was successfully supplied on an experimental basis to the old Medak district on June 17 this year, and also to the old Karimnagar and Nalgonda districts on June 18.
There are 23 lakh pump sets in the state, of which 9.58 lakh are in these three districts alone. That is 43 per cent of the pump sets in the state, with a maximum demand of 9,500 MW. The power was procured and supplied.
To supply 24-hour power to more than 23 lakh pump sets additionally, the requirement will be for an additional 1,500-2,000 MW.
