Preface

Out of the total 29 million consumers in the Maharashtra state, around 45 Lakh consumers are agriculture consumers and consume 22% of electricity. Presently power supplied to the agricultural consumers is during day and night-time on rotational basis. The nighttime power supply to farmers is creating a lot of inconvenience to them and there is a constant demand for long time to provide reliable electricity supply to farmers during the daytime. On the other hand, there is also a strong demand that the industries and businesses in the state should be supplied with electricity at a reasonable rate to maintain their competitiveness.

To overcome these problems, an innovative scheme called the “Mukhyamantri Saur Krushi Vahini Yojana” was introduced in June 2017, wherein decentralized solar projects of capacity 2 MW to 10 MW will be installed within 5 kM radius from the agriculture dominated sub-stations. Looking at the immense benefits of AG feeder Solarization, the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) decided to reframe the scheme after detail deliberation with stakeholders. The GoM reframed the scheme as a Mukhymantri Saur Krushi Vahini Yojana 2.0 (MSKVY 2.0) and set objective of 30% feeder solarization by 2025 as a ‘Mission 2025’ by implementing 7000MW decentralized solar projects on fast-track mode, wherein decentralized solar projects within the 5 - 10 kM radius from agriculture load dominated distribution sub-station will be installed with the capacity from 0.5 MW to 25 MW for giving day time power to farmers.