History was made Tuesday midnight as Telangana became the first State in the country to supply 24 hours free power to the farmers for irrigation of their fields.
Making a statement on the floor of Telangana Assembly on Wednesday, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said that 23 lakh agriculture pump sets across the State were getting free electricity round the clock since last night.
“It had happened nowhere in the country before. This is good news to the farmers who faced power problems from decades together. The power utilities of the State will closely monitor the transmission and distribution network for 5 to 6 days and supply 24 hours uninterrupted power on permanent basis from coming Rabi season,” the Chief Minister said.
In Telangana 25 per cent of power was being utilised by Agriculture pump sets, KCR added.
Within a few days of the formation of Telangana State in June 2014, the duration of free power supply to the farmers was increased from four to nine hours. In June this year, it was increased to 24 hours in three districts on experimental basis, he added.
The Chief Minister praised the officials of the power utilities for meeting the highest ever demand of 9,500 MW power recently by supplying 198 million units of power.
“I am happy to announce that the power corporations are ready to supply 11,000 MW demand that is going to reach due to 24 hours power for Agriculture sector in ensuing Rabi season”, he said.
While the present phase of 24 hour supply on experimental basis will end in a week’s time it will become a permanent feature from March-April next year.
Chief Minister recalled that at the time of the formation of the State there was severe power crisis in the State and people were facing untold problems due to power cuts of two to four hours in Hyderabad, 6 hours in other cities, and 9 hours in villages.
“There were 2 days power holidays in a week for industries. Due to shortage of power, industries were shut down on massive scale. The industrialists under the aegis of FICCI, CII started doing dharnas for power”, he said.
He also recalled that on the day of formation of Telangana, the installed power generation capacity in the State was 6,574 MW, including 4,300 MW thermal power and 2,081 MW hydro power.
“There was power deficit of 2,700 MW at that time in Telangana State. The supply was not commensurating with the demand. Due to the negligent attitude and due to lack of planning of erstwhile Government there was absolute doom in all sectors”, he said.
This change, he said, was brought about by giving utmost priority to power sector and trough short term, medium term and long term planning to make Telangana a power surplus State with an investment of Rs 94,000 crore.