Hisar?a town where the evidences of pre-Harappan settlements stand tall in Agroha, Banawali and Kunal, is coming up as an important and fast-growing urban centre of Haryana. It gained importance in early sixties when Agriculture University was set up here as an extension of the Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana.
Ever since, the farmers are reaping the benefits of the research and development being done in the Chaudhary Charan Singh Hisar Agriculture University.
O P Sheoran, deputy commissioner Hisar told FE that Hisar is counted among the top urban towns of Haryana. Research done in the Agriculture University has led to improvement in productivity of the soil. Even people from Punjab and Rajasthan come here for buying good-quality seeds, cows, fertilisers, buffaloes, bullocks and sheep. Agriculture has turned remunerative for the farmers bringing prosperity in the region.?
Moreover, the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) is working on segregating the domestic and agriculture load in rural areas in the district. This will ensure regular power supply at improved voltage and under this plan, 49 new feeders of 11kv level will be constructed. Over 60 % work of this project has already been completed by DHBVN.
The Nigam is also creating high voltage distribution system (HVDS) or aerial bunched cable-based distributions system in all villages and urban localities in the district to ensure safe and qualitative power supply. Work in 73 villages has been completed.
But now the economy of Hisar, which is primarily agrarian is also paving way for industrialisation. With big groups like Jindals and DCM well-established in Hisar, the steel and textile industry has been growing since the last few years.
Though, there is no trade union in Hisar but the industrialists rue about power shortage, which hinders manufacturing process. ?There are frequent power cuts in the industrial area, which delays the manufacturing process. There is a dire need of improving the power situation,? said Rahul Dev Tayal, an industrialist from Hisar.
The existing problem of power shortage will soon be over with the coming up of a 1,200 -mw thermal power plant in Khedar in Hisar. Over 50% of the construction work of this Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Project is complete and the first unit of this Rs 4,338-crore project will be commissioned before December 2009 and second before March 2010. An official from the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Ltd told FE that generator stator of Unit-2 was recently placed on its foundation.
Giving financial details, he informed that total expenditure of Rs1,302.66 crore has been incurred so far on the project against a total engineeering, procurement and construction cost of Rs 3,775.42 crore. He added that reliance engineers are already working dedicatedly towards achievement of the next major milestone of boiler hydraulic test of Unit-1, scheduled during March 2009.
?This is the first project in the northern region to be awarded Mega project status with attached benefits under the Mega project policy of the government of India,? he added.