Free electricity to farmers: If the decision is taken to provide free electricity to farmers, Uttar Pradesh will become the sixth state in the country where farmers will get free electricity. At present, there is a system of providing free electricity to farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. In Haryana and Puducherry, farmers are provided electricity at the rate of 10 paise per unit.
Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Consumer Council President Awadhesh Verma has said that the council will take up the issue of completing the announcement of providing free electricity to the farmers at the earliest with the new government. Along with this, this demand will also be kept for the domestic consumers to get cheap electricity. In the state, farmers were given electricity in rural areas at the rate of Rs 170 per horse power and metered at the rate of Rs 70 per horse power and energy charge at the rate of Rs 2 per unit. The farmers of urban areas were given Rs 130 per horse power and energy charge at the rate of Rs 6 per unit. Before the elections, the state government halved this rate fixed for farmers, which has also been implemented from January 1.
Benefit of free electricity in Andhra Pradesh 17,40,418 farmer consumers; 29,69,013 in Karnataka; 13,78,960 in Punjab; 21,17,440 farmers in Tamil Nadu and 23,05,318 farmers in Telangana are getting the benefit of free electricity. When the new government of the state will take this decision, then 13,16,399 farmer consumers of the state will also start getting electricity free of cost.