Cause of concern: Wastage of precious water resource, after launch of 24X7 power supply to farm sector, is the main concern of the Government as many farmers have not removed auto-starters. | Photo Credit: Mohammed_Yousuf With only about a fortnight’s time left for the launch of 24×7 power supply to agriculture sector from January 1 to make Telangana the first State to do so in the country, the power utilities are improving the transmission and distribution system to meet the last-mile requirements. “We are working on the last-mile improvements such as erecting new transmission (low tension) lines, setting up new distribution transformers and upgrading power transformers, after finding shortcomings during the trial run of round-the-clock supply done across the State from November 7 to 20”, TS-Transco Chairman and Managing Director D. Prabhakar Rao told The Hindu. He stated that the experimental run of uninterrupted power supply to the farm sector for about two weeks had brought out some minor shortcomings in the system only in a couple of areas, particularly in Renjal area of Nizamabad district. However, the trial run was continued by arranging supply from alternative routes and the shortcomings were being fixed now with new lines and transformers, he explained. The trial run did not have much impact on the total demand since the agricultural operations for the Rabi/Yasangi season were yet to gain momentum then. “The Rabi cultivation is just picking up with about 25% of coverage so far out of nearly 12.8 lakh hectares normal extent and they are expected to go full steam during the next one month”, officials of the Agriculture Department said. Although there are about 23.6 lakh pumpsets as per official statistics, the demand during the trial run was around only 7,000 MW and for the past few days it has been in the range of 7,500 MW to 8,000 MW. The power utilities have spent about ?12,000 crore on strengthening the transmission and distribution network for last one year keeping in mind the impending decision of the Government. The utilities have all geared up to meet the expected demand in the range of 10,500 MW to 11,000 MW when the agricultural operations would be in full swing. “We have tied up purchase of 500 MW and 1,000 MW power separately for the coming peak-demand season till May-end at ?4.19 per unit (Kwh)”, official sources said. Meanwhile, new generation capacity of Kothagudem Thermal Power Station and Bhadradri Thermal Power Project is also expected to come handy to meet the peak demand. “Work on the 800 MW (Unit-VII) of KTPS is in full swing and it is expected to be commissioned before March 31 next and the light up of boilers of at least two units (270 MW each) of BTPP at Manuguru would also be done by the same time”, Mr. Prabhakar Rao said adding that all the four units there would be commissioned by 2018 December-end.

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