Farmers demand 9 hours power supply

Narasaraopet : Demanding that the government must give nine hours of uninterrupted power supply to agriculture pump sets, farmers staged a protest with pesticide tins and threatened to commit suicide at the Central Power Distribution Company substation at Machavaram of Palnadu district on Friday. They criticised that the State government was not supplying at least two to three hours of continuous power supply to agriculture pump sets, adding that crops are getting damaged. Due to the depletion of groundwater levels, the situation is forcing the farmers to use pump sets. If the same situation continues, they will incur loss due to crop damage. Later, they staged a dharna on national highway at Machavaram. CPDCL engineering officials rushed to the spot and assured that they would take up power cut problems with the higher officials and solve the problem.