Lucknow. Before the assembly elections, the Yogi government has given a big gift to the farmers. The government has decided to cut the existing electricity rate of private tube wells by 50 percent for irrigation. This will directly benefit 13 lakh farmers of the state. Their irrigation cost will be halved. To cut electricity rates by 50 percent, the government will have to give about one thousand crore rupees as a grant to Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited.
In fact, in many other states of the country, where farmers are getting free electricity for irrigation, the rate of electricity for private tube wells of farmers in Uttar Pradesh ranges from Rs 2 to Rs 6 per unit. The fixed charge is also Rs 70 to Rs 130 per horsepower (HP). In such a situation, the opposition parties have been surrounding the government by making the issue of farmers’ electricity expensive. Since the assembly elections are about to take place, the opposition parties are making constant efforts to woo the farmers by announcing free electricity if the government is formed. As the opposition parties could not succeed in their efforts, the Yogi government has decided to give a big gift of cheap electricity to the farmers, playing a big bet on Thursday, even before the notification of the election is issued.
According to the tweet made by the Chief Minister’s Office regarding the decision of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, from the month of January itself, the cost of using electricity in metered, unmetered, energy efficient pumps in rural areas and metered tube wells in urban areas will be halved as compared to the present. According to the proposed new rates, where bill has to be paid at the rate of two rupees per unit on metered connections in rural areas, now only one rupee unit will have to be paid. The fixed charge for such a connection will be Rs 35 per horsepower instead of Rs 70.
Similarly, for unmetered connection, the fixed charge will be Rs 85 instead of Rs 170 per horsepower. For energy efficient pumps, where electricity is currently Rs 1.65 per unit and fixed charge is Rs 70 horsepower, after 50 percent reduction, farmers will have to pay only 83 paise per unit and fixed charge Rs 35 horsepower.
For private tube wells with metered connections in urban areas, instead of Rs.6 per unit and fixed charge of Rs.130 per horsepower, farmers will now have to pay only Rs.3 per unit and Rs.65 per horsepower as fixed charge. In order to give 50 percent rebate in the electricity rate of the farmers, the power corporation management will need about one thousand crore rupees every year. The State Government will provide grant money to the Corporation by incurring additional expenditure of Rs. one thousand crore. According to departmental experts, the number of farmers with private tube wells is 13,16,399. Their total bill is about 1846 crores. The maximum number of rural unmetered is 12,57,367, from which electricity revenue of Rs 1,654 crore is being received from the existing electricity rates. Similarly, the corporation is getting Rs 112 crore from rural metered 44,755 to 80 crore and urban metered 14,277 connections.
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