Power utilities in Andhra Pradesh have drawn out a special programme to ensure seven-hour power supply to farmers.
The programme will include development of customised software, conducting substation-level meetings to get feedback from farmers and random inspection by vigilance teams for ensuring assured power supply to agriculture, among others.
“The objective of the power utilities is to make all-out efforts to protect the standing crops in kharif,”Mr Hiralal Samariya, Chairman and Managing Director, APTransco, said in a release issued here on Sunday.
A customised software providing details of feeder-wise agricultural supply position was on the Web site for real-time monitoring of power supply to farm sector and all utilities were directed to use it, he said.
The Discoms were also told to install global positioning system software for tracking the movement of department vehicles for transportation of transformers and to avoid misuse.
Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of agricultural services in the country next to Maharashtra.
The total number of agricultural pumpsets had gone up to 30.77 lakh as compared with 25.99 lakh in 2007-08.
The total number of electricity consumers in the State have increased to 24.25 crore from 19.47 crore, the released added.