Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched the Kisan Suryodaya Yojana for providing 16 hours of power supply to farmers of Gujarat.
Speaking on the occasion, he said Gujarat has always been an exemplary model for the determination and dedication of the common man. He added after the Sujalam-Suflam and Sauni scheme, the Kisan Suryodaya Yojana Gujarat has set a milestone in meeting the needs of the Gujarat Farmers. He said the work done in Gujarat for years in the field of electricity, has become the basis of this scheme. He said from power generation to transmission all the works were carried out in mission mode to improve the capacity in the state. He said in 2010 when the Solar Power Plant was inaugurated in Pathan, nobody could have imagined that India would show the world the path for One Sun, One World, One Grid. Prime Minister appreciated the fact that India has now reached 5th position in the world in the last few years in solar power and is advancing fast.
On Kisan Suryodaya Yojana the Prime Minister said, earlier most of the farmers got power for irrigation in the night only and hadto wake up all night. In Girnar and Junagadh the farmers also face the problems of wild animals. Under the Kisan Suryodaya Yojana farmers will get 3 phase power supply from 5 AM to 9 PM and will bring a new dawn in their lives.
The Prime Minister also lauded the efforts of the Gujarat government for doing this work by preparing a completely new capacity of transmission, without affecting the other existing systems. Under this scheme, about 3500 circuit kilometers of new transmission lines will be laid in the next 2-3 years and will be implemented in more than a thousand villages in the coming days and most of these villages are in tribal dominated areas. He said it will change the lives of lakhs of farmers, when the entire Gujarat gets the power supply through this scheme.
To provide day-time power supply for irrigation, the Gujarat Government under Chief Minister Shri Vijay Rupani had recently announced the ‘Kisan Suryodaya Yojana’. Under this scheme, farmers will be able to avail power supply from 5 AM to 9 PM. The state government has allocated a budget of Rs.3500 crore for installing transmission infrastructure under this scheme by 2023. 234 ‘66-Kilowatt’ transmission lines, with a total length of 3490 circuit kilometers (CKM) will be established under the project, in addition to 220 KV substations.
Dahod, Patan, Mahisagar, Panchmahal, Chhota Udepur, Kheda, Tapi, Valsad, Anand and Gir-Somnath have been included under the Scheme for 2020-21. The remaining districts will be covered in a phase-wise manner by 2022-23.
