Hyderabad, Oct. 20: The free power supply scheme for the agricultural sector has turned out to be a heavier burden than bargained for by the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government — the additional subsidy is not the estimated Rs 437 crore and is likely to cross Rs 1,000 crore — thanks to increased agricultural power consumption.

APTransco sources told Deccan Chronicle that the Corporation has been incurring additional expenditure on agricultural power consumption, which had gone up steeply in the last four months. According to official figures, the consumption by the farm sector has gone up from 942 million units in July to 1,249 MU in August — a 32 per cent increase. The agricultural power consumption during this period last year was 976 MU — which means there was an increase of 28 per cent in this category.

“The increase in agricultural power consumption has been estimated, assuming that the distribution loss of 19.45 per cent has not come down in the last one year, though distribution companies have been claiming that they have brought down the loss,” a senior APTransco official told Deccan Chronicle.

The official said Discoms had drawn 4,074 MU from APTransco during the month of August, of which the metered sales were to the tune of 2,032 MU. Disregarding the 19.45 per cent distribution loss of 792 MU, the remaining consumption of 1,249 MU automatically goes into the account of agriculture, which is the only unmetered sector.

The official says there could be various reasons for the increased agricultural power consumption — stepping up the operation of pumpsets due to increased ground water levels, increased capacity of pumpsets (in several areas, people converted their 5 HP pumpsets to 10 HP and more) and increased number of unauthorised power connections.

“No doubt the free power supply has encouraged farmers to resort to all these measures. But Transco has to provide the additional power to meet these requirements by incurring additional expenditure, which, according to our estimates, will be more than Rs 1,000 crore. And the government has to reimburse this amount to APTransco,” the official said. With Rabi season about to start, Transco is worried that the agricultural consumption might go up further. Because of this, it has kept in abeyance the release of additional power connections for the time being.

..DC