1.5 lakh new connections for agri pumpsets okayed

Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah on Sunday cleared the proposal of power utilities to provide 150,000 new power connections for agriculture motor pumpsets, which will also provide the benefit of free power supply during 2010-11.

At a meeting to discuss the issues of power supply, APTransco officials informed the chief minister that transmission and distribution (T&D) loss of the state for the 2009-10 financial year was 18.51 per cent, which is one of the lowest in the country. Compared with this, the T&D loss during 2000-01 was 34.8 per cent.

This significant reduction in T&D losses was made possible by implementing a number of efficient measures. Many initiatives like implementation of innovative technologies, installation of continuous monitoring systems and regulation of operations of discoms were executed to achieve improvement in performance, both technically and economically ensuring high-quality power supply, according to a press release.

The officials also said APTransco had taken up 21 substations of 220Kv and ten of 132Kv at a total cost of Rs 1,155 crore for various lift irrigation schemes being executed by the irrigation department.

Meanwhile, APTransco has bagged the best performing power utility (state) under ‘Utilities and T&D Awards 2010’. The award in recognition of its efforts in achieving the lowest T&D losses in the country, a release said.