Agri pumps, fans to be replaced

Hyderabad: In an ongoing energy-efficiency mission, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal will launch two schemes; National Energy Efficient Agriculture Pumps Programme (NEEAPP) and National Energy Efficient Fan Programme (NEEFP) in Vijayawada, on Thursday.

These schemes will be implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under Ministry of Power. NEEAPP will help farmers in replacing energy guzzlers, the age-old agricultural pumps with the new-age energy-efficient agricultural pumps.

These pumps will come enabled with smart control panel and a SIM card, giving farmers the flexibility to switch-on and switch-off these pumps from their mobile phones and from the comfort of their homes. Through these new-age energy-efficient SIM-enabled agricultural pumps, Union Power Ministry is looking at a 30 per cent savings in energy by 2019.

This boils down to an annual savings of Rs 20,000 crore on agricultural subsidies or a saving of 50 billion units of energy every year. Along with this Piyush Goyal, will also launch NEEFP for Indian households and businesses, wherein energy-efficient ceiling fans of 5-star rating will be provided at Rs 60 a month on EMIs.

With the usage of these energy-efficient fans, consumers will also stand to save on their electricity bills by Rs 700 a year. This means, a consumer can recover the cost of this energy-efficient ceiling fan in less than 2 years. While these energy-efficient ceiling fans will cost Rs 1440 to a consumer who uses the installment route, for those who can pay upfront can buy this fan for Rs 1250. A total of two ceiling fans can be bought on one electricity bill from domestic category consumers only.