NASHIK: The new agricultural pump power policy introduced by the state government for farmers has been receiving a good response. After the announcement of various concessions under the scheme, a total of 3.42 lakh farmers in the state have paid Rs 312.41 crore as pending electricity bill till date. Out of this, Rs 30.38 crore has been paid in the Nashik district and Rs 44.75 crore in the Ahmednagar district.
All in all, a total of Rs 75.18 crore has been paid by the farmers in the Nashik circle. The response to the scheme has been steadily increasing. State Energy Minister Nitin Raut has appealed to farmers to avail the benefits of this scheme. Under this scheme, the government has waived off outstanding bill amount around Rs 15,000 crore which was pending with the farmers.
The scheme will be implemented over a period of three years. Those agricultural pump consumers paying an outstanding bill in the first year will get a 50 per cent discount on the revised basic outstanding bill. interest and late fee charges will be waived off completely. In this way, those consumers who pay the full pending bill amount in the first year will get about a 66 per cent discount.
Those consumers who pay their pending bill amount in two years will get a 30 per cent discount on the revised basic pending bill and those consumers who pay their pending bill amount in three years will get a 20 per cent discount. Those farmers taking advantage of this scheme will be exempted from all interest and late charges on pending bill amount before September 2015.
Also, the late fee charges on the pending bill amount after September 2015 will be completely waived off. The interest rate on the pending bill amount will be charged at the average rate of interest on the loan taken by MSEDCL. Out of the total pending bill amount collected from the village, 33% will be spent on infrastructure related to the electricity supply of the same village.
