Tirupati: Releasing farm connections on demand, says SPDCL CMD K Santosh Rao

Tirupati : APSPDCL CMD K Santosh Rao said that besides supplying quality power to farmers, the service connections are being released immediately on demand.

Speaking to the media here on Wednesday, he said that during 2019 to date, 2.34 lakh agricultural connections were released while only 7,129 services are pending for clearance. As per the Central government’s Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), 3,900 feeders under the SPDCL are being separated through which 3-phase power supply can be provided uninterruptedly even in rural areas.

He further said these works would be completed by 2026 and the 60 per cent of the cost would be borne by the Central government while the remaining 40 per cent has to be met by SPDCL. The organisation has invited tenders for supply of 2,807 vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) of 11 KV capacity in June 2023. A proposal was sent to the Central government to use star rated transformers as part of the modernisation of power distribution companies. Technical losses can be reduced by 20 to 25 per cent with the use of star rated transformers.

The CMD said that all purchases in SPDCL will be made through e-procurement along with reverse tendering and the tender process will be in a transparent way. Also, another proposal was sent to the Central government to change the transformers as the central electricity authority has mentioned in its guidelines that the lifetime of electricity transformers and breakers is 25 years. The CMD added that consumers can call toll free numbers 1912 or 1800425155333 and can resolve power disruptions and other issues.