Hyderabad: Farmers associations say transmission corporations have private investments, and are profitable business entities. They should be considered as private companies and not be allowed to take cover as government organisations and public utilities.
Consortium of Farmers Association founder P. Chengal Reddy said, “Most transmission companies like Power Grid Corporation have huge private investments to the tune of thousands of crores and they pay dividends running into hundreds of crores. But they do not pay compensation to farmers. Farmers have been protesting all over the country against construction of transmission towers, and the issue has not been solved.”
He said that in most cases Power Grid had not paid compensation for the loss of value. “The land runs into lakhs of acres,” he said. He said compensation should be paid for damage of the crop during laying of the lines apart from the use of the land. “Due to wrong information put out by transmission companies, the state governments have deliberately avoided payment of compensation to the land owners who are mostly farmers,” he said.
