Hyderabad: Barely a week after providing free 24x7 electricity to the agriculture sector in Telangana state, the government will be reviewing the scheme as there are serious concerns about depleting groundwater levels and waste of power.
The power demand on January 1, the first day of the new scheme, went up to 180.83 million units. This is significantly higher than the 127.77 MU recorded on January 1, 2016 and 144.31 MU on January 1, 2017. On January 3, 2018, the demand further peaked at 182.38 MU.
Groundwater levels have been affected in several districts due to the increasingly liberal power policy over the last year.
The worst affected are Sircilla, Nirmal, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Medak, Mancherial, Peddapally and Sangareddy.
The ground water level in Sircilla fell from 8.29 metres in December 2016 to 13.36 metres now. It fell from 6.39 metres to 9.58 metres in Nirmal, in Nizamabad from 7.10 metres to 10.01 metres, Adilabad from 5.31 metres to 7.65 metres, Medak from 12.45 metres to 14.78 metres, Mancherial from 4.36 metres to 6.51 metres, Peddapally from 7.14 metres to 9.20 metres and Sangareddy from 10.92 metres to 12.01 metres. Now with round the clock free power supply for running agricultural pumps to draw water from wells, groundwater levels will be depleted faster, it is feared, something the state government ought to have taken note of before launching the scheme.
