Gandhinagar: Due to delayed rain in August and so far in the month of September, the demand of power has increased in agricultural sector, as the farmers need to use pumps to irrigate and save their standing kharif crops, and also in non-agricultural sector due to heat and high temperature.

The peak power demand has gone up and reached an unprecedented 24,544 MW in Gujarat this week, in which the demand in the agriculture sector is 9002 MW.

The State government has started giving two hours of additional power supply to the agricultural sector across all districts starting from September 5. There are 20.28 lakh agri power connections in the State. Due to good rains, in July this year, the peak demand of power was 17,413 MW. Due to delayed rains, or no rains, the peak demand in August 2023 was 22,972 MW including 9724 MW in agricultural sector.

The situation of delayed rain was experienced in the State in year 2020-21 also, but the peak demand was 18,483 MW only including 9,481 MW in agri sector. DeshGujarat