The Andhra Pradesh government has announced that the nine-hour free power supply guaranteed for farmers will only reach 81% of the electrical feeders this kharif season as opposed to 100%. While the government has said that this is because of COVID-19, it did not explain further. Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy asked officials to ensure free nine-hour power supply to 100% of the electrical feeders from the next rabi season.
This decision was announced at a review meeting held on Friday. Officials also said that work on solar plants generating 10,000 MW would begin by the end of May.
Earlier, the previous TDP-led state government had been providing free power to farmers for seven hours a day, which was increased by YSRCP to nine hours in February last year, the state government has claimed. Then in the 2019-20 budget announced in July, an amount of Rs 4,525 crore was reported to have been set aside to facilitate the nine-hour free power supply in the day.
Earlier in February, the state government had directed all the power distribution companies in Andhra Pradesh to arrange a metering system for measuring power supply from distribution transformers meant for the agriculture sector.
Officials of the State Energy Conservation Mission (SECM) had claimed that while the direction had originally come from the Centre, farmers’ associations themselves had also requested that meters be set up at the transformer level. The metering is expected to help the government assess the subsidies claimed by power distribution companies, as DISCOMS (distribution companies) often blamed their financial losses on the free power supply to farmers.
The government has also claimed that in the previous kharif season, power was supplied only to 58% of the electrical feeders.
The COVID-19 situation and the lockdown has adversely affected farmers in Andhra Pradesh as wells as in other parts of India. Farmers across the state, including the capital region of Amaravati, have been facing uncertainties due to reduced access to markets and unavailability of workers for farm labour.