BHUBANESWAR: With the supply of uninterrupted and quality power to the consumers still a challenge and segregation of feeder lines for dedicated power supply to agriculture and fishery sectors remaining unrealised, the State government is negotiating with the Centre for financial assistance under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme for strengthening transmission and distribution infrastructure in rural areas.
The State is not eligible to get assistance under the Central scheme launched in June 2021 as it has privatised the power distribution business. “Since the scheme focuses on funding for feeder segregation for agriculture, fisheries and other sectors and has a major thrust on improving electricity supply to the farmers especially in the daytime through solarization of agricultural feeders, the Energy department is preparing a detailed project report for submission to the Power Ministry,” highly placed sources in the department said.
The Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), one of the two lending agencies, is stated to have agreed to the State government proposal for developing dedicated feeders for agriculture and allied sectors with RDSS assistance. Apart from REC, the Power Finance Corporation (PFC) are the other nodal lending agencies for the Rs 3.03 lakh crore RDSS.
The scheme’s cost is borne by the Centre and State governments in a 3:2 ratio. The State government is free to borrow from either REC-PFC or from other financial institutions to mobilise the funds. In 2013, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik approved the Energy department's proposal for a dedicated power supply to the agriculture and fishery sectors at an estimated cost of Rs 1,000 crore. The project was scheduled to be implemented within a period of four years. The scheme has not made any headway due to several factors.
As the power consumption in the agriculture sector of the State is one of the lowest in the country, the government planned to install separate feeders to ensure the supply of quality power to agriculture and fishery sectors during off-peak hours and increase productivity in food grains as more agricultural land will be covered under assured irrigation.
Further, it will support the fishermen's community and people involved in pisciculture to enhance their production. A dedicated power supply will boost food and fish processing units as they will have infrastructure support like cold storage. Areas having a good number of lift irrigation points, borewells, shallow tube wells and deep borewells were taken as a cluster.