NASHIK: Overcoming many hurdles in the state including heavy rains, floods and cyclones, outbreak of corona for two and a half years in a row, and limited production of new technology rohitras, the MSEDCL through High Voltage Distribution System (HVDS) scheme, has commissioned 1,17,774 electricity connections of the agricultural pumps which have been pending since March 31, 2018.
In a review meeting, Vijay Singhal, Chairman and Managing Director, MSEDCL, directed to complete the remaining 40252 connections expeditiously. The state government has launched a High Voltage Distribution System scheme for the new connection of 224,000 agricultural pumps pending by March 31, 2018 even after payment. Similarly, one or a maximum of two agricultural pumps are being connected by separate rohitras (transformers).
The state government has allocated Rs 5048.13 crore for the scheme and funding for this has been approved. Of this, Rs 2248.09 crore will be provided by the state government in the form of grants for Vidarbha and Marathwada. For the rest of Maharashtra, MSEDCL will borrow Rs 2799.59 crore from financial institutions. MSEDCL started the process of providing new connections to agricultural pumps through HVDS scheme.
These works in rural areas were affected by heavy rains, floods. Also, the demand for new technology of 10 KVA, 16 KVA and 25 KVA capacity rohitras has increased. After that, from March 2020, due to the outbreak of corona virus and lockdown, production of Rohitra was limited. Meanwhile, floods and hurricanes hit the state. It mainly hit rural power systems. For the second year in a row, the corona caused a curfew, which affected its work.
