Saturday, April 4, 2009 Electricity Network expansion to Hulhumeedhoo farm fields underway

Hulhumeedhoo powerhouse has started works to provide electricity to Hulhudhoo farm fields today. This is in conjunction with the minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Dr. Ibrahim Didi’s promise during the opening ceremony of newly developed road that leads to farm fields in February 2009. Dr. Didi promised to Hulhumeedhoo people that he would enhance means and ways to develop agriculture in Hulhudhoo and Meedhoo and that he would prioritize providing electricity.

Hulhudhoo Today has learnt that the current power network expansion project carried out by Hulhumeedhoo powerhouse is to enable farmers to easily access to electricity needs at a reasonable cost. Under this project three distribution boxes near farm fields of each island would be setup and it depends of farmers to get connections from these boxes.

Some farmers are still dissatisfied. According to them, they would have to spent further Mrf10,000 to get power connection to their relevant farm fields. However ministry has recently announced that they would soon start providing soft loans, with 3% interest rates, to farmers. This is likely to ease the tension of the farmers experiencing short term financial difficulties in expanding their business.

During February ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture has conducted a ten day workshop in Hulhumeedhoo to improve the knowledge of farmers. The workshop was a success as it had helped many farmers enrich their understanding towards various diseases to crops.

Power network expansion project to Meedhoo farms will kick off upon completion of the development of preceding roads. Unlike Hulhudhoo, Meedhoo is rich in farming and the scope for expansion of agriculture is higher.