Transco, RD to prepare action plan for NTR Jala Siri

Hyderabad, May 11: In tune with the Policy of GoAP and to reach the target of Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N.Chandrababu Naidu, on Energization of bore-wells drilled by Rural Development for SC & ST farmers in particular and Small & marginal farmers in general, APTRANSCO and Rural Development have contemplated an action plan for accelerating the progress of NTR Jala Siri borewells project with a project cost of Rs. 1,400 Crores. Accordingly the Dinesh Kumar, Special Chief Secretary, Rural Development Dept., has suggested Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary, (Energy, I&I, CRDA) and K. Vijayanand, CMD/APTRANSCO to take immediate initiative and submit the latest report to the Government soon. Since Chief Minister is extremely keen to implement NTR Jala Siri scheme for the upliftment of poor farmers and improve the quality of life, the action plan should be submitted to Special Chief Secretary to Government, PR & RD Department and to Principal Secretary to government., Energy department., I&I & CRDA, said, K.Vijayanand. In this connection, K. Vijayanand, CMD/APTRANSCO convened an emergency review meeting with B. Ramanjaneyulu, Commissioner/Panchayat Raj & Rural Development along with top officials of DISCOMs including P. Pulla Reddy, Director/ Technical & HRD and K.S.N Murthy, CGM/ Commercial, and K.S. Varaprasad, Joint Commissioner, Rural Development Dept. to review and monitor the progress and proposed an action plan for time bound implementation of the prestigious programme. During the meeting a detailed review has been taken up and it is agreed upon by the RD Dept., and power utilities that the energisation of around 1200 borewells are to be completed by the end of May’2016. The power utilities have been successful in energizing around 5918 borewells so far under NTR Jala Siri Phase-I. The programme essentially focuses on providing adequate water for the agriculture activities which is one of the pre-requisites for achieving Double Digit Growth in primary sector / agriculture sector. APTransco to subsidies up to Rs.50,000 per borewell towards energisation. Going by the huge response from the farmers with the successful implementation of the programme the GoAP has further decided to take up NTR Jala Siri – Phase-II programme in all the 13 districts and it is contemplated to energise around 1,25,000 borewells in the near future. The GoAP has put up a special focus for effective implementation of this programme in 7 backward districts of Andhra Pradesh i.e., Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Chittoor, YSR Kadapa, Ananthapur and Kurnool. As part of this programme the Govt. is contemplating to take up the following activities are--- To energize already drilled 10,000 borewells in command areas ; To drill 1,03,681 borewells in command areas ; To drill 20,668 borewells in non command areas. The programme is planned to be in convergence with funds to be provided under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (APTRANSCO), and the State Government Fund as follows.