Above 15000 smart meters plucked out and piled up in the front of Tata Power Western Odisha Distribution Limited (TPWODL) office in Bargarh in Odisha. Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) urges Odisha CM to desist from taking vindictive actions against protesting farmers.
Groundxero | Nov. 15, 2024
Farmers in Bargarh district of Western Odisha have launched a massive struggle against the privatisation of electricity distribution that has been handed over to Tata Power. As part of their struggle, the farmers are boycotting prepaid smart meters Tata Power. The step goes against the agreement made by the Modi Government on 9 December 2020 with SKM to discuss before implementing the Electricity Privatisation Bill.
In Bargarh district of Western Odisha, more than 15,000 farmers protested against the smart meters and voluntarily removed the smart meters installed at their homes and farms and piled them up in the office of Tata Power in Padmapur and other blocks. Smart Meter boycott has become a widespread movement in Bargarh and surrounding districts of Western Odisha.
Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has extended full support to the farmers in their massive struggle against the privatisation of electricity distribution. On 8 November 2024, a ‘Krishak Garjan Samavesh’ was organised by the ‘Sanyukt Krishak Sangathan’ in Padampur, West Odisha. SKM has demanded 300 units of free electricity per month to the families engaged in farming.
The BJP government that came to power for the first time in Odisha has adopted a repressive approach towards this movement. A notice has been issued to the Kisan leader Ramesh Mohapatra, calling him a ‘habitual offender’. It should be noted that the only FIRs registered against him by the police are in the cases of farmers voluntarily boycotting smart meters. SKM has strongly condemned the suppression of the peaceful movement of farmers against privatisation of the power sector by the BJP government of Odisha led by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi. It has demanded the Odisha CM to immediately withdraw all the false cases filed against farmer leader Ramesh Mohapatra and other activists by his government and start discussion with the farmers agitating for their just cause.
Privatisation of electricity has now become another tool to exploit the farmers and the public in general. In the areas where the farmers’ movement had been active for a long time on the issues of minimum support price, crop insurance and irrigation, the organised and non-violent resistance to the loot in the name of electricity is most effective including massive boycott of prepaid smart meters. Such struggles has become widespread across the country now and SKM demands Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep the promise made by his government on 9th December 2020 to discuss with SKM on the electricity privatisation bill in the wake of the historic farmers struggle at Delhi borders. The PM must immediately initiate discussions with the agitating farmers instead of recourse to suppress the peaceful struggles.
SKM appealed farmers protesting against privatisation of electricity across India to join the joint worker-farmer protest on 26 November 2024 in districts called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions, Independent /Sectoral Federations, Associations.
