Farmers in Andhra Pradesh Resist Fixing of Energy Meters to Farm Connections

Farmers in Gondipalli village, Rapthadu mandal, Anantapur district (Andhra Pradesh), protested against the installation of energy metres for agricultural connections beginning on Farmers' Day on Saturday (Friday). On Saturday, a delegation from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the A.P. Rythu Sangham visited Gondipalli, where Rapthadu police stopped them from going to the location where the metres were being repaired.

"The meter-fixing work began yesterday, and when farmers came out to protest, State police personnel prevented them from protesting." All of this is being done to meet the World Bank's requirements for power sector reforms in order to lend 1,000 crores," said CPI(M) district secretary V. Rambhupal.

Installation of metres on all agricultural service connections in the state will streamline the implementation of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme and to essentially know the pump set-wise consumption and load on transformers, which will aid in making necessary system improvements.

Rythu Sangham district secretary R. Chandrasekhar and committee members Ramanjaneyulu and Pollayya eluded the police and marched to the district's first energy metre, where they raised slogans against the State government for laying the groundwork for later burdening farmers at the behest of the Central government.

Agriculture was already becoming a burden for farmers due to the vagaries of nature and the government's failure to come to their aid on time.

Now, this energy metre would add more burden in the future, he claimed, alleging that it was all to benefit Gautham Adani's energy companies.

According to him, the Adani group was seeking 40,000 acres in Bommanahal and Kannekal in Anantapur district and Mudigubba for the establishment of solar and wind production units as part of the World Bank agreement.