ONGOLE: As farmers raised mostly irrigated dry (ID) crops like chilli, Bengal gram, sunflower etc. under borewells, there is no threat of interruptions in power supply to them in Prakasam district till now, district Collector B. Udaya Lakshmi has said.

Addressing a review meeting with agriculture and electricity officials here on Tuesday, she asked them to monitor the situation closely and report to her if any crop withered away due to power problems.

She also asked power officials to inform farmers about the timings of power supply and interruptions so that they could prepare themselves for watering the crops.

Superintendent Engineer, Transco, Ram Singh said that they were supplying power to farmers for seven hours a day in two spells as there was decline in generation of hydel power at Srisailam.

They supplied power to villages in `A' group between 2 a.m. and 9 a.m. and for `B' group between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

As they were not able to maintain continuous supply, they disrupted power supply for two hours to all villages. To compensate, they were supplying power to `A' group villages between midnight and 2 a.m. and for `B' group villages between 10 p.m. and midnight.

They were also ensuring uninterrupted power supply for domestic consumption between 6 p.m. and 4 a.m.

He hoped that the situation would ease soon as efforts were being made to generate hydel power at Srisailam and revive 300 MW units at Kothagudem in the next few days.

He said that some farmers staged rasta roko at Racharla in Markapur area demanding continuous supply.

Agriculture officials said that no withering of crop was reported in any part of the district.

However, there was confusion on the ayacut under borewells.

While agriculture officials contended that it was 25,000 hectares, electricity officials felt it was only 25,000 acres.

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