As you all must be knowing that electricity for farming is FREE (just nominal fees of INR 25 a month) in Andhra Pradesh. It looks very lucrative and easy but stop, lets see if it is really that easy.
In order to take electricity connection for farming, you need following documents
- Agriculture A form (about 9 pages), you might get it from your Mandal or Mandal office nearby xerox shops
- 3 photos
- Patta pass book with gazetted officer signature
- Pahani and Choppas with gazetted officer signature
- DD amount of INR 5685
- Line man and Line inspector sketch (you will find them in the nearby Sub station)
Agriculture A form is a long form that takes time to fill. If you are fortunate enough to have close gazetted officer, its easy and cheap for you otherwise be ready to loose your pocket to get the signature of gazetted officer on the documents. I spent around INR 1000 to get the signature done.
Pahani and Choppas will be given to you by Village Revenue Officer (VRO) or Patwari of your village. Naturally, he also has his own cut so be ready to loose your pocket here too. He might charge you INR 1000 for these documents; he is supposed to give it for FREE or just nominal fees.
Line man and Line Inspector sketch is also one of the most important document and is a must before you apply for the connection.
Line man is supposed to know all the connection of his area but despite that he may give excuses and make you run multiple times to the office unless you are loosing your pocket. He may charge INR 300 to 500 based on how you are looking or whether you are local or foreigner (if you are not from the same village, they treat you as a foreigners, if you are from other state, they treat you as a money tree). After taking money also its not guarantee that he will do your work, he might need other assistance to do the sketching, so be ready to loose some more pocket.
Once the Line man signature and sketch are done, be ready with the Demand Draft. Now Line Inspector would sign the application (based on how honest he is, its your luck you may or may not loose your pocket).
Once the Line Inspector have signed the application, the Engineer needs to sign, he is going to take money for sure. So be ready to loose your pocket again. I tried to give him INR 500 and he rejected saying that he is not a labor that I am giving INR 500 and said I won't do the work, keep running to the office every day. Before that he also said indirectly that the file size is very huge and it has to travel long distance from one table to another so some money should be given.
These cheap fellow doesn't have sense that the money they receive at the end of the month is for the same job we are requesting him to do.
In case you are not ready to loose your pocket or your pocket is not that big, forget about taking Farming connection.
If some penny is left in your pocket after Engineer's signature, you will be required to submit the document to Electricity Customer Care Service center of your area. Do not be happy by the center name (Customer care), they are not going to care you anyway, the penny left in your pocket are for them.
Still as of today, the electricity connection is not in place only the application has been accepted. I do not know when the connection will be in place and how.
Conclusion
If you are a real local farmer, I do not know how you get the farming power connection but if you are outsider (have bought the farm land to do social service or to contribute your part to the farming community) and trying to get the power connection, do not expect any favor (forget about favor, they do not even do their job what they are supposed to do) from anyone even if your purpose of farming is social service or educating others or anything that is good for the society on the whole.
Thanks for reading, do let me know if you have any comments or suggestions about this article.
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