After Ministers, legislators and party leaders of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy has joined the ongoing issue of 24×7 free power supply to agriculture sector, on which the Opposition Congress has been alleging that the government has not been supplying uninterrupted supply to farming and just an hour’s supply is enough to wet one-acre crop.
Speaking at farmers meets held in the Rythu Vedikas at Jalalpur and Mesra in Varni mandal in Nizamabad district on Tuesday as part of the BRS call to hold farmers’ meets to discuss the Congress’ view on free power and adopt resolutions against it, Mr. Srinivas Reddy in his capacity as the MLA of Banswada Constituency said the talk of an-hour’s supply enough for watering an acre’s crop was a view of those who do not know about agriculture.
He explained that raising paddy in one acre would require 60 lakh litres of water at an average of 50,000 litres everyday even for 120-day varieties and sought to know from the Congress leaders whether they could pump up 50,000 litres of water in an hour either from a borewell, openwell or any other source such as flowing water (in streams).
Mr. Srinivas Reddy, who was the Minister for Agriculture from June 2014 to December 2018 in the first term of BRS Government, stated that farmers were holding an extent of about 2 crore acres land in the State and of it they were cultivating 1.58 crore acres. The power connections to agricultural pump-sets which were 18 lakh in 2014 have increase to about 30 lakh now.
Further, he explained that about 75 lakh acres land was being cultivated with the help of pump-sets or half the extent of land under cultivation. The remaining extent was under projects, lift irrigation schemes and irrigation tanks. It would mean that an average of 2.5 acres land was under every agricultural pump-set and the peak demand of power went up to 15,500 megawatt as the domestic connections had increased to 1.28 crore form 81 lakh, industrial and commercial connections to 1.,7 crore from 1.11 crore at the time of State formation.
To match the demand, the State Government had spent about ₹98,000 crore was spent on power generation, transmission and distribution networks, Mr. Srinivas Reddy said adding that the farmers who attended the meeting said they wanted uninterrupted supply not 3-hour supply as being proposed by Congress.
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