Eastern farmers to get cheaper power in Turkey

DİYARBAKIR - Anadolu Agency

Farmers in the southeastern cities will only pay for 20 percent of the power they used. AA photo

Dicle EDAŞ, the power distribution company serving southeastern provinces, has cut electricity prices to one-fifth of market prices for the farmers in the region.

The grid’s move will both benefit farmers who have been obliged to use a huge amount of power to provide water as well as the company itself, since the high prices have been prompting illegal usage of electricity.

Twenty-five thousand farmers in the region are using underground wells they excavated to meet watering needs as the irrigation part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project, known as GAP, has not been completed yet.

GAP is a multi-sector integrated regional development project based on the concept of sustainable development for millions of people living in the southeastern Anatolia. The project aims to to double Turkey’s irrigable farmland but has not been compelted.

Dicle Elektrik provides electricity for 1 million subscribers living in the southeastern cities of Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Mardin, Batman, Siirt and Şırnak, where the loss and leakage rate is the highest in Turkey at 70 percent.

The İşkaya Doğu joint venture has recently acquired the operational rights of the grid after a failed privatization attempt by the government in 2010. The 2010 tender was canceled also due to disputes aroused because of high loss rates.

The new owner of the grid had expressed its determination to cure the ever-present problem in the region.