A McKinsey study on India's power sector foresees the power deficit surging from 15,000 mw today to 70,000 mw by 2017.

They would help agriculturists during the next rabi season

JAIPUR: Jaipur Vidyut Vitaran Nigam has set a target of releasing 23,000 new agricultural power connections in 12 districts of Rajasthan falling in its jurisdiction and decided to speed up the issue of connections from next month.

Jaipur Discom Chairman and Managing Director R.G. Gupta said here on Wednesday that 25,676 demand notices were issued to farmers in April in addition to 4,437 pending since the previous financial year. Of the 23,047 new connections to be released this year, 2,037 have already been issued.

The Madhya Pradesh government has taken a number of steps for improving the condition of farmers and for encouraging them towards agriculture works. In this direction the government has reduced the tariff of power for the year 2008-09. The Madhya Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission has decided to provide power to the farmers for this year at 30 paise per unit. The Commission's decision is welcome. The State government was already providing the farmers, having power meters, at subsidised rate of 75 paise per unit.

Govt fails to pay subsidy to PSEB The Punjab government has failed to comply with the directive of the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) to pay subsidy on account of free power to agricultural pump sets in instalments in advance at the beginning of each quarter.

DIBRUGARH, June 30

Grameen Shakti, has installed 1,50,000 solar home systems in rural and remote areas of Bangladesh Bangladesh's rural development bank, Grameen Shakti bagged the coveted

Even as Punjab farmers have been hard hit due to the acute shortage of farm workers for sowing paddy, the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) has added to their woes by refusing to provide temporary power connections for tube wells. It has been a regular practice of the PSEB to grant temporary agricultural power (AP) connections for the past three years in succession. Last year, a little more than 27,000 applications for temporary AP connections were disposed of by June 20 against charges of Rs 1,500 per BHP.