Bangalore: Finally the Agriculture Minister Krishna Byregowda seems to have found a solution to fund crunch in the gram panchayats.Sulibele village in Bengaluru Rural district has only 17 borewells in running condition and 20 dead borewells.
However the village has pending electricity bills amounting to Rs 80 lakh including Rs 15 lakh of accrued interest. The villages should start chanting the “Reuse and Recycle” mantra, feels the minister.
Every taluk in the district has at least 150 defunct borewells. However, they continue to receive electricity bills.
The minister, who held a district review meeting on Thursday, ordered a survey of all the defunct borewells in the district within the next fortnight to prepare an inventory of material (pipes, pump, motor, cable, panel board) lying waste in dead borewells. At the same time, the gram panchyats have been directed to seek shifting of the existing power connections of defunct borewells to the newly sanctioned borewells.
“The average cost of drilling a borewell has reached Rs 5 lakh, including the electricity connection cost of Rs 1,17000. It is a criminal waste of money if we do not reuse the material used in defunct borewells, which are abandoned but not dismantled.
We plan to raise an inventory of material used in these borewells and assess how much of it can be reused. I believe, the cost of installing a new borewell will reduce by half if we can reuse the old material,” explains Byregowda.
“To prevent unnecessary billing of defunct borewells, I have ordered the power supply to be suspended. The same connections can be diverted to a new borewell within the village. I will not allow any new power connection to be sanctioned for borewells in the taluk, till the suspevnded lines are fully utilized,” added Byregowda. The cash-starved GPs should practice austerity, feels the minister.