Farmers of various villages of Rampura Phul constituency of Bathinda district stayed put on Thursday after they gheraoed the official residence of PSPCL chief engineer – distribution (west zone) in Bathinda district on Wednesday.
Although, Punnerdeep Singh Brar, chief engineer, Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), and his family had left the official residence ahead of this dharna. Sources say that the PSPCL chief engineer was tipped off about the protest so he could keep himself and his family out of harm’s way.
The trigger for the protest was PSPCL rejecting farmers' plea to substitute the damaged transformers of tube wells.
In Rampura Phul village, the transformers of tube wells of four farmers had been damaged for months and also, they were not being replaced by PSPCL on the ground that these connections were ‘illegally installed’ and were not in the records of PSPCL. The reason given by PSPCL didn’t go down well with the farmers and they started this indefinite dharna outside the house of the chief engineer in Thermal Colony in Bathinda district.
Punnerdeep Singh Brar is unable to go back to his official residence due to the dharna. Sources also say that he is not working from his office. He is doing his official work from some makeshift office.
In October last year, this problem was first underlined when the transformer of Ranjit Singh’s tube well caught fire. Ranjit Singh, a farmer living in Gill Kalan village of Rampura Phul had got his transformer and tube well installed in 2017. Another farmer Lakhvir Singh of the same village had his transformer and tube well installed in 2012. On November 15, 2022, Lakhvir Singh’s transformer caught fire.
A PSPCL official revealed, “A committee was constituted which conducted a survey and it was found that nearly 178 such illegal tube well connections had been installed in Rampura Phul alone whose records are not with PSPCL. They must have been done in a secretive manner by the farmers in collaboration with PSPCL employees,”
Also, an FIR was lodged in November 2022 against nine people, including seven PSPCL employees.
Jasveer Singh of BKU Ugrahan said, “But all these people are out on bail. They include sub-divisional officers, junior engineers, and even two executive engineers. PSPCL employees had charged money from the farmers and issued receipts to them and now, the farmers are being told that the connections were illegal. This is strange!”
In 2011, Jarnail Singh of Pitho village got his tube well connection and transformer installed and the transformer got damaged in January this year, while Mahinder Singh got his transformer and tube well connection installed in 2016. And, in November 2022, his transformer went out of order.
Sources revealed that it seems that all these tube well connections were installed much before they were officially cleared by the PSPCL office.
Punnerdeep Singh Brar said, “Due to the protest outside my residence, I am not able to enter my house. This is a case of illegal tube well connections and their case is pending before the committee formed by the PSPCL. The action had already been taken on seven PSPCL employees and two private persons.”
The number of illegal tube wells connections will be in large numbers if a survey is done statewide, as per the sources.
