Farmers resent power-cuts

SURAT, May 6: The district unit of the Gujarat Khedut Samaj, while expressing displeasure over repeated power cuts, has demanded uninterrupted supply of electricity for the ginning mills in and around the city to facilitate faster work of converting raw cotton into bales. This, they said, will not only help the economy, but will also be beneficial to the farmers, who can then pay off loans back to banks.

President of the district unit of the Samaj said on Tuesday that while the flow of cotton has been low throughout the country, the state has received ample cotton. He added that the process of converting this into bales had to be completed before the onset of the monsoons and repeated cuts in electricity were making the task difficult.

Regretting the non-availability of electricity, the leader said that farmers had been using the best seeds, fertilisers and other methods to increase their yield, but the process of ginning, which actually is an income generating procedure for them, had suffered badly because of daily power-cuts.

Citing an example, where 17 marginal farmers of Andhra Pradesh committed suicide a couple of years ago because of poverty, Desai said he feared that a similar situation would arise among cotton farmers and those involved in ginning activity, if the government did not heed to the problems of cotton farmers. Desai also listed down a number of other problems being faced by farmers of the district.