KCR assures 24X7 power supply to farmers

Hyderabad: In yet another move to appease the farming community, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday announced 24 hour power supply to agriculture sector from next year. Holding a meeting with Oil Palm farmers from Bhadradri Kothagudem district at Pragati Bhavan here, the chief minister said ‘ by coming year and year and half, efforts will be on to supply 24-hour power to the agriculture sector in the State.

’ To address the Minimum Support Price (MSP) problem permanently, his government would earmark Rs 500 crore fund in the next budget and the agriculture produce would be sold by the Farmers Committees.KCR said at present, the government is supplying 9-hour power to the agriculture. ‘Some farmers are using automatic starters and drawing more water than required. This had resulted in depletion of ground water level.

He said once 24 hour power supply is made, there would be no need for the farmers to use automatic starters. “Farmers will be able to draw water whenever they needed,” the CM said.Government has ensured that there is no scarcity of seeds and fertilizers. Godowns with a storage capacity of 21.5 lakh metric tonnes are constructed, he said. Now farmers have two major issues, one is input expenditure and the other is MSP for their produce.

For the input expenditure, the state government has decided to give Rs 8000 per acre irrespective of the crop to the farmers as input subsidy. To address the MSP issue, government would create separate fund with Rs 500 crore from next budget . Expressing happiness for adopting Land Acquisition Bill in the Assembly on Sunday, KCR said: If the land acquisition process picks up the projects can be completed faster and provide irrigation facility for one crore acres by 2019.