Rs 57 crore package for Yavatmal farmers

YAVATMAL: The state government has allotted Rs57 crore as special package for electric connection to the agriculture pumps of the farmers in Yavatmal district. There would be no farmer left without energy supply to his pump by the end of this fiscal year, said district guardian minister and MoS for revenue Sanjay Rathod here in a press conference on Monday evening.
The minister further said the farmers had wells in their farms obtained by different schemes of the state government, but they could not bring the wells to agricultural use owing to the lack of electric supply to their pumps.The farmers had been demanding power connections to their pumps for long.
“Taking cognizance of the long pending demands of the farmers, the state government has now sanctioned a special package of Rs57 crore for the district aiming to ensure electric connections to all the eligible farmers in a time frame of one year,” Rathod said.
Presently there were 9,913 applications for electric connections to the agri pumps pending in the district and they all would be given connection from the special package fund, Rathod further said.
Under the ‘Dhadak Sinchen Yojana’, there were 1,594 applications pending, of which 1,432 farmers had already been given connection on priority basis till now and the remaining farmers would be given connections before the onset of monsoon, he added.
The Ministry for Energy has recently issued a GR to make it compulsory for MSEDCL to set up a District Level Energy Distribution Control Committee under the chairmanship of the respective district guardian ministers on which the chief engineer of the respective circle would be the member secretary. “The committee has been provided with special authority to supervise the supply of energy,” Rathod informed.
The state government has also granted Rs100 crore for the ‘Jalayukta Shivar’ programme implemented in the district and 503 of 2,050 villages have been selected for the programme. The entire district would be covered in a phased manner, Rathod further said, adding he had appealed to the prominent NGOs in the area to contribute to the success of the programme as it would be a prestigious programme of the government to curb farmer suicides.