Bhubaneswar, July 25: Odisha government has decided to invest Rs 3,600 crore to create power infrastructure for boosting farming in the state with an eye on the next elections.

A proposal in this regard received cabinet nod today. “The state will mobilise the entire amount from its own resources,” said chief secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra.

Of the total amount, Rs 2,600 crore will be spent on setting up 520 new 33/11KV substations across the state while the remaining sum will be utilised for creating a special feeder for promoting farming and allied activities.

Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited (OPTCL) will implement the scheme.

Sources said the Biju Janata Dal was planning to extract maximum political mileage out of the project right from the beginning with chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his ministerial colleagues almost certain to lay the foundation stones for the proposed substations.

The Opposition, too, seems to be aware of their plans.

“The chief minister and colleagues will go on a foundation laying spree once the project begins. We have seen this happening when 108 Mobile Health Service Ambulances were launched,” said Jaydev Jena, Pradesh Congress Committee chief while accusing the government of adding to the burden of the consumers with repeated upward revision of power tariff.

Giving details of the project, chief secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra said that all the substations would be installed within three years.

“The installation of the feeder may take one more year. Once the project is completed, the government will save Rs 255 crore that it has been losing annually because of aggregate technical and commercial losses, which will come down by three per cent,” he said.

Energy secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena said the places for the installation of substations have been identified.

“We have completed the detailed project report for 350 installation sites so far. While one acre of land is required for the purpose in rural areas, only 3,000sqft is needed in urban localities,” he added.

Jena said that the dedicated agriculture feeder would provide uninterrupted power supply to farmers thereby boosting their productivity.

The fisheries sector also stands to benefit from the feeder. “Even ice factories linked to fishery projects will get uninterrupted power supply,” he said.

The state government has already identified 71 fisheries clusters.

That the ruling party is keen to woo the farmers is also evident from the fact that last week it constituted a special “ Krushi O Krushak” committee under the chairmanship of former agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy to disseminate information about the government’s welfare programmes for the farming community.

The committee will also organise programmes to create awareness among party cadres in this regard.