Residents, mostly women and farmers, staged a sit-in protest at Assistant Engineer (AE) office in Melur village near Jolarpet town in Tirupattur on Tuesday, demanding restoration of defunct electricity transformer to operate power motor pumpsets to irrigate farmlands in the area.
Residents said that Melur village is part of Panchur village panchayat of Jolarpet panchayat union in Tirupattur. The village has around 100 families, who are mostly farmers and agricultural labourers.
As temperature has been increasing for the past few weeks due to summer, high power consumption has resulted in breakdown of the existing 100 KV electricity transformer in the village in February. Since then, farmers in the village were unable to operate power motor pump sets due to power fluctuations. “Operating diesel motor pump sets is adding up to overall expenses to cultivate our farmland. Regular watering of standing crops is required to hold moisture content in the crops. Despite several requests, the defunct transformer was not repaired,” said K. Mohan, a farmer.
At present, the existing Tangedco office has around 8,000 consumers, covering the entire Panchal village panchayat, which consists of at least seven hamlets. The office monitors around 200 transformers in the area for many years.
The existing defunct transformers in Melur village were installed more than three decades ago. Earlier, power consumption in the village was less due to limited agricultural land under cultivation. Over the years, area under farming went up to around 800 acres in the village with most of the consumers having independent power connection to their farmland under free electricity subsidy scheme.
Farmers in the area mainly depend on borewells and farm wells to irrigate agricultural lands. Extensive use of power motor pump sets is in usage. Tangedco officials said that the defunct transformer was unable to withstand the power consumption of the existing consumers. It resulted in the breakdown of the transformer a few weeks ago. An alternative arrangement to provide household power supply has been made since then. However, power motor pumpsets in farm lands cannot be run due to low power voltage.
Local Tangedco have sent a proposal for additional transformers in the village to prevent power fluctuations and damage of transformers. Additional 63 KV transformer has been sanctioned by the State government at a cost of Rs four lakhs. “We will commence installation of additional transformers in the village in the coming week. Once it is installed, farmers can run power motor pump sets to irrigate their paddy fields in the village,” S. Bhoopathy, Assistant Engineer, Tangedo, told The Hindu.
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