Urging the State government to fulfil their demands, including replacing high tension power lines with underground cables and revoking the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, members of Joint Movement of Farmers against High Tension Power Line Projects have decided to stage road roko at 50 places in 13 districts on November 18.
Power Grid Corporation of India Limited is carrying out works to install towers for the 800 KV Raigarh (Chhattisgarh) - Pugalur (Tiruppur) HVDC power line at farm lands in Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Erode, Namakkal, Salem, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore, Villupuram, Dindigul, Karur and Tiruchi districts.
Despite stiff opposition from the farmers against the project, installation of towers in farm lands is being carried out. Hence, the farmers in these districts, led by coordinators, had formed the joint movement to chart out the next course of action and carry forward their protests.
The coordinators from 13 districts met at Bhavani here on Thursday and decided to stage protest pressing for fulfilling their demands. They wanted the State government to announce as policy decision that high tension power lines would be replaced with underground cables, and the India Telegraph Act, 1885 repealed as it was anti-farmers and replace it with a new law that addressed the concerns of affected farmers, provide four-fold compensation to the farmers as per the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 and provide rent to the farmers on whose land towers were already installed.
The farmers also said that the four rounds of talks with the Minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise P. Thangamani did not yield results and hence they wanted the Chief Minister to hold talks with the farmers affected by the project.
