MADURAI
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday sought a response from Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) on power supply to villages.
Hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by an agriculturalist, which sought a direction to Tangedco to provide uninterrupted three-phase power supply to his village in Sivaganga district to carry out agricultural activities, a Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran and S. S. Sundar observed that it would be difficult to carry out agricultural activities with limited power supply.
R. Gurusamy of Sivaganga, in his petition, complained that his village Manalmedu and the neighbouring Pethanendhal, which were dependent on electricity to carry out agricultural activities, faced close to 10 hours of power cut every day.
Without uninterrupted power supply, he claimed, it was hard for them to go about their daily work and said most of the time they sat down doing nothing productive during power cuts. Unless an uninterrupted three-phase power supply was provided, it would be difficult to irrigate fields. The lack of power supply affected small and marginal farmers who had gone to the extent of abandoning agriculture altogether, he claimed.
He sought a direction to Tangedco to regularise three-phase power supply to the villages. The court ordered notice to Tangedco and adjourned the case by two weeks.