After several protests and demands by famers and farmers’ organisations, officials of Gulbarga Electricity Company (GESCOM) in Yadgir have provided uninterrupted power to farm pump sets.
The district is reeling under drought as out of six taluks of its two have been declared severely drought-hit and the remaining four taluks have been declared as moderately drought-hit.
The State government and district administration has been prepared to conduct surveys of crop losses owing to drought. But, it failed to provide uninterrupted power supply to farm pump sets through which majority of farmers were drawing water from two major rivers like Krishna and Bhima and other water resources such as lakes and streams.
When the power problem emerged, the farmers who were expecting good yield started worrying about how to protect standing crops such cotton, sugarcane, red gram, green chilli and paddy and therefore, have started urging the State government to provide power uninterruptedly to the farm pump sets ensuring they would not face crop losses due to shortage of power.
Farmers held protests in the district and submitted memorandums to the in charge Minister Sharanabasappa Darshanapur and GESCOM officials. Due to the collective efforts by the farmers, the State government had decided to extend a helping hand and thus, GESCOM officials provided electricity to farm pump sets.
“We are now providing power for seven hours in a day in two slabs. One is from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m. and another one is from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m., enabling farmers to water their crops,” Raghavendra, Executive Engineer of GESCOM, has said.
The farmers welcomed the decision of GESOM and expressed that this will help them protect crops. “We survived owing to the decision taken by the GESCOM. We hope that we will get a good yield that too under drought situation,” Channappa Anegundi, farmers’ leader, has said.
