Published On:May 30 2017
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24-hour power supply to farm sector in TS by 2018-end.
The Telangana Government is planning to provide round-the-clock (24-hour) power supply to agriculture sector from 2018-end by strengthening the transmission and distribution network with an investment of about ₹ 1,300 crore.
The decision to provide uninterrupted power supply to farm sector increasing it from the current nine-hours supply was taken by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao last month. According to officials, about 25 lakh agriculture connections were consuming power ranging from 2,500 MW to 3,500 MW depending upon the crop conditions.
It has been estimated that establishing six 400 KV sub-stations, 12 numbers of 220 KV sub-stations, 21 numbers of 132 KV sub-stations, 30 of 33/11 KV sub-stations, 230 power transformers and laying 33 KV conductor lines for 689 km length would be taken up as part of the Government plan to ensure 24-hour power supply to agriculture sector.
“During combined Andhra Pradesh, the allocation for free power supply to farm sector was only ₹ 3,621 crore including the share of ₹ 1,521 crore for Telangana. But, the Telangana Government allocated ₹ 4,485 crore besides spending ₹ 2,541 crore on strengthening the T&D network for giving nine-hour supply”, a senior official of TS-Transco stated.
From the situation of power holidays to industrial sector and unreliable supply to domestic, commercial and agriculture sectors on the day of Telangana State formation on June 2 in 2014, the State Government had turned the tide with short-term, medium-term and long-term plans for improving the power sector and started providing uninterrupted supply to domestic, commercial and industrial categories from December 2014 itself, the official said.
The Government had plans firmed up to make Telangana self-reliant and a power-surplus State by 2020-end. The officials stated that the generation capacity of Telangana including its share in the inter-state generating stations or central generating stations, from long-term suppliers and from renewable sources on the day of State formation was only 6,575 MW with TS-Genco accounting for 4,365 MW. In three years after State formation, it has added another 4,190 MW including 600 MW from Bhupalapally, 1,200 MW from Singareni, 570 MW from private producers (long-term), 178 MW from CGS, 240 MW from Jurala hydro-electric, 30 MW from Pulichintala hydro-electric, 1,273 MW from solar and 99 MW from wind taking up the total installed capacity to 11,689 MW. However, about 4,500 MW of it is non-dependable since its from hydel, solar and wind mills.
Plans for increasing the installed capacity to over 29,300 MW by 2020-end include 800 MW from KTPS-VII, 1,000 MW from Chhattisgarh, 1,080 MW from Bhadradri, 90 MW from Pulichintala, 954 MW from solar, 206 MW from CGS by 2017-end.
Another 1,000 MW more from Chhattisgarh, 1,600 MW from NTPC (out of 4,000 MW), 800 MW from Singareni, 809 MW from CGS, 3,727 MW from solar, 90 MW from hydel would also be added by 2020-end.
THE HINDU