The Telangana Government has drawn up plans to offer 24×7 power supply to the farm sector from rabi season (February 2018) beginning with a pilot project that covers nearly a million agriculture consumers across three districts from kharif itself.
Of the 22 lakh agricultural connections in the State, the three districts of Medak, Nalgonda and Karimnagar, where 24×7 power is being supplied on a pilot initiative, has about a million agriculture consumers (9.85 lakh).
D Prabhakar Rao, Chairman and Managing Director of TS Transco, said, “The move to provide 24x 7 to the farm sector will be a major boon in a State which started its journey as a power deficit one when it was formed in June 2014.”
From nine hours of supply, when farmers get power round the clock, they would be able to better manage their power requirements and ensure better yields, he said.
“From a peak demand of about 144 million units in 2013-2014, the demand has now shot up to 185 million and we are in a position to meet the entire demand without any power cuts across all consumer sections,” he said.
The State had installed capacity of 6574 mega watts in June 2014 and this has seen the addition of about 5348 mw of fresh capacity in the last three years. “We now have peak demand of about 8300 mw and this had shot up to 9191 mw in March 2017. This is projected to go up to 11,000 mw when the agriculture connections get 24×7 power,” he said.
“Telangana now has a capacity of 13,095 mw, which includes 1000 mw sourced from Chhattisgarh. Over the next three years, we are planning to add another 13,000 mw,” he said.
The addition in capacity would be from 800 mw unit at Kothagudem, 4×270 mw at Bhadradri in Manuguru, which will be fully ready by next year end and 5×800 mw Yadadri project, which has received various mandatory clearances including environmental.
Referring to the renewable energy sector, The CMD said the State currently has 1738 mw of installed power and expects to add about 800-1000 mw within the next 5-6 months. The plan is to have 5000 mw of renewable power within the next three years.
The State is also looking at disengaging itself from high cost power as sourced from one of the power plants in Tamil Nadu at Rs. 6.80 per unit as against peak power purchase cost f Rs. 4.73 per unit.
On the ongoing payment issues with Andhra Pradesh, Rao said these would have to be sorted out amicably.
Source: thehindubusinessline
