Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

‘Exempt agriculture from power cut’

COIMBATORE: The Tamizhaga Vivasaigal Sangham has appealed to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission to include agriculture under essential services and exempt it from power cut. It should also permit use of agricultural pumpsets when two-phase current supply was available.

In a memorandum to the commission, the association’s Coimbatore District president, V.T. Balasubramaniam, said the farmers were concerned over the supply of three phase current for just 10 hours a day though earlier the Government had said it would supply the same for 14 hours a day. Recently the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board said that in rural areas, three phase power would be available for 10 hours a day and single phase for 14 hours and that pumpsets should be used only for six hours in the day time and four hours at night.

Most of the farmers used “air lifted pumps” and this took a long time to pump groundwater. And, mono bloc pumps and submersible motors cannot be used when the volume of water to be pumped was less.

Farmers with standing crops would face loss because of the new rule since they were operating the pumpsets even with two-phase supply of power. He also said the Government should ensure that inputs for agriculture should be treated as essential commodities and the prices of these products should not be allowed to go up further.

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