VIJAYAWADA: Minister for Energy Gottipati Ravi Kumar has said concrete measures are being taken to strengthen the free power supply scheme to ensure that farmers get quality power, which helps make agriculture a profitable activity, besides empowering them.
At a meeting with the top officials of AP power utilities at the Secretariat on Monday, Ravi Kumar reviewed the power supply position in the State.
Reviewing the 9-hour free power supply scheme, the Energy Minister said clear directions have been given to the power utilities to focus on building a permanent and robust system to supply quality power to farmers to water their standing crops.
Reviewing the functioning of Discoms, he urged them to strive to provide quality services to electricity consumers and lay emphasis on grievance redressal. All the damaged/old electric poles, loose power lines and conductors and transformer/line issues should be looked into to ensure the safety of people. Discoms should also take steps to provide 100% power to tribal villages, he said.
Special Chief Secretary (Energy) K Vijayanand said the power utilities are striving to ensure the effective implementation of the schemes, besides laying emphasis on providing quality services to all categories of consumers. AP power utilities are making all-out efforts to provide 100% power supply to tribal areas. In the Agency areas, where laying of power lines is not feasible, steps are being taken to provide solar power to tribal hamlets, the officials explained and added that an underground cabling project is going on in Visakhapatnam under the disaster-resilient scheme of RDSS (Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme).