Farmers Movement Archive

'Agitating farmers illegally tapping electricity, damaging roads': NHAI

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has accused the agitating farmers of illegally tapping electricity from its streetlight connection to run their gadgets and appliances, including washing machines, heaters and TVs, besides damaging the road at the Ghazipur border on the under-construction Delhi-Meerut Expressway.The NHAI has urged the Uttar Pradesh government to get the road cleared in keeping with the terms and conditions of the State Support Agreement (SSA), which provides that barring reasons related to emergency, national security and law and order, no government agency or private individual will disrupt the highway project.The NHAI charges come amid the announcement by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait that he would set up an air-conditioned office at the protest site, giving indications about the agitators readying for a long haul.Tikait, who has been sitting on the UP-Delhi border with thousands of his supporters for more than two months now, is also a member of the State Advisory Committee (SAC) under the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC).The NHAI claims to have written several letters to authorities since December 16, 2020, bringing the issue to their notice and urging them to get the site vacated so that the expressway project could be completed as per the fixed timeline.“We have been regularly writing to the authorities for over two months now about the farmers having illegally occupied the expressway, stealing electricity from our street lights, damaging the road, etc. We have urged them to get the place vacated, but in vain,” said project director Mudit Garg.Also read: January meeting could have provoked PM Modi’s swipe at the IAS-led ‘babus’The state government, he argued, must order the site to be cleared as per the SSA entered into with it on May 5, 2015.One of the letters written by Garg to the Ghaziabad district magistrate, with a copy marked to UP’s chief secretary and regional officer, NHAI, on January 28, stated, “Farmers are making unauthorised use of the project’s streetlights for various purposes and things such as washing machines, heaters, tent lighting, mobile charging points etc.”“Tapping supply illegally from the streetlight,” he pointed in the letter, led to frequent damages of equipment like miniature circuit breakers (MCBs) etc, apart from causing fluctuations, damaging project’s high-quality streetlight lamps.The letter further said, “bitumen layer on around one-kilometre stretch from UP Gate/Delhi to Dasna had been completely burnt, because of farmers regularly burning bonfires on the dharna site. The road surface is in a very poor condition.”“Digging of roads to erect poles and put up tents and water flowing from the makeshift toilets set up on the site are also damaging the road,” the letter said.Garg said entry to the site has been completely blocked. “We do not know what is happening there on the project site. Protestors chased our men away when they managed to reach the place a few days ago,” he complained.Meanwhile, BKU state president Rajveer Singh Jadaun said, “We are not going to vacate the protest site, NHAI’s complaints notwithstanding, till the government withdraws the three laws.”“As for the charges about farmers stealing electricity from NHAI’s streetlight connection, our leader Rakesh Tikait has publicly said that government can always send its officials and give a separate power connection for the dharna site,” he added.UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) chief engineer, Ghaziabad zone, Pankaj Srivastav confirmed that farmers, or anyone else on their behalf, had neither taken a power connection for the protest site nor had anyone applied for one.“We are told that farmers are meeting their electricity requirements by tapping the streetlights line that is duly metered and causes no revenue loss to us,” he argued.

Hindustan Times

16-02-2021

India