The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Power shortage may affect free supply for ryots

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 07, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Power shortage may affect free supply for ryots

M. Malleswara Rao

HYDERABAD: Monsoon is just around the corner and so is kharif, the season for the 27 lakh agriculture pumpsets in the State to get ready.

A severe shortage of power threatens to mar the free power supply to these pumpsets this time. The Government is likely to face difficulty to ensure even the seven-hour supply to the agriculture sector without imposing cuts on other categories of consumers.

Even with a normal monsoon as forecast, a shortage of 4,471 million units has been officially assessed for this year, with the availability being put at 58,301 mu as against a demand of 62,772 mu.

Experts' worry

Under an action plan, the Transco set aside Rs. 2,832 crore to buy additional power to overcome the shortage. This will be in addition to the subsidy by the Government and cross-subsidy by other power consumers amounting to Rs.3,041 crore in 2006. Experts, nonetheless, fear that any monsoon failure will change the entire scenario by reducing hydel generation and increasing agriculture load.

A bad hydro-thermal mix thus will widen the gap between demand and supply, forcing Transco to buy power and at a high cost and impose a heavy burden on the exchequer. In contrast, heavy rain helped in successful implementation of free power supply for three consecutive years. The rains reduced the State's dependence on groundwater for farming, giving relief to the pumpsets, and, at the same time, enhanced hydel generation by 2,000 mu which, indeed, provided the necessary leverage to the system to handle the demand.

Under the circumstances, high hopes are pinned on the "technical trick" used by the Transco — overdrawing power from the Southern Grid during night when other states sleep, and improving the efficiency of the pumpsets to save power by installing ISI-marked motors and pipes.

Discontent rife

Another threat is that there is a simmering discontent among the non-farming sections of society over the free benefit extended to farmers at huge social cost.

While an agriculture coolie pays power bills through his nose, the farmer, his master who is well off with land, is waived. Enquiries showed that farmers are not paying even "customer charge" (Rs. 20) payable by all consumers.

With 2009 being an election year, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy is expected to streamline the benefit instead of diluting it in any manner.

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