NASHIK: The new agricultural pump power policy introduced by the state government for farmers has been receiving a good response, and since the announcement of various concessions under the scheme, a total of 1,38,620 farmers in the Nashik zone have paid Rs 104 crore in the form of pending electricity bill.
A total of 15,809 farmers in the Nashik circle have paid Rs 18.16 crore, while in the Malegaon circle, a total of 19,091 farmers have paid Rs 21.32 crore, and a total of 1,03,720 farmers have paid Rs 64.64 crore in Ahmednagar circle. The response to the scheme has been steadily increasing. Under this scheme, the state government has decided to waive off outstanding bill amount around Rs 15,000 crore that was pending with the farmers.
Rs 1,591 crore is pending as electricity bill with 1.88 lakh farmers in Nashik circle, while Rs 1,454 crore is pending with 1.62 lakh farmers in Malegaon circle and Rs 5,028 crore is pending with 3.96 lakh farmers in Ahmednagar circle. Overall, Rs 8,075 crore is pending as an electricity bill with a total of 7.46 lakh farmers in the Nashik zone.
The scheme will be implemented for three years. Those agricultural pump consumers paying an outstanding bill in the first year will get a 50 per cent discount on the revised basic outstanding bill. interest and late fee charges will be waived off completely. In this way, those consumers who pay the full pending bill amount in the first year will get about a 66 per cent discount.
Those consumers who pay their pending bill amount in two years will get a 30 per cent discount on the revised basic pending bill and those consumers who pay their pending bill amount in three years will get a 20 per cent discount. The interest rate on the pending bill amount will be charged at the average rate of interest on the loan taken by MSEDCL.
Out of the total pending bill amount collected from the village, 33% will be spent on infrastructure related to the electricity supply of the same village. Farmers in the Nashik zone should take advantage of this scheme, appealed chief engineer of Nashik zone Deepak Kumtheka.
