PULL THE PLUG ON FREE POWER TO BIG PUNJAB FARMERS: PANEL
Document says withdrawal be done in a phased manner, starting with big farmers in state
CHANDIGARH: A draft on agriculture policy prepared by the Punjab State Farmers Commission (PSFC) has recommended withdrawal of free power to agriculture tubewells in a phased manner.
The draft, which blamed factors such as the lack of governance and stress in the farming sector besides ineffective government policies for farmer suicides, has been released in the public domain. After getting suggestions from various stakeholders, it will be submitted to the state government by June 30 for implementation.
This is the second draft that has been prepared after 2013. The first did not move forward as the then Akali-BJP government rejected it as it had suggested to withdraw free power to agriculture tubewells.
“Power subsidy should be restricted to non-income taxpaying farmers and that too for the time being,” says the suggestion by PSFC led by its chairman Ajay Vir Jakhar.
The panel also suggested to levy cost of power on tubewells owned by farmers having 4 hectare land or more.
“Initially, a flat rate at ₹100 per BHP per month will be levied on farmers owning 4 hectares or more,” the document says.
The government finds it difficult to pay subsidy to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), which as per the tariff order by the Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC) for 2018-19 is ₹5,800 crore. There’s also a total backlog of ₹10,000 crore the government has to pay to the corporation.
“I feel the farming distress is more of a governance issue and the solution lies with the government and not in farms. We have prepared a pragmatic policy and hopefully this draft will become a policy,” he added.
“The policy attributes farmers’ distress and suicides as a direct consequences of ineffectual policies, lack of god governance, unsatisfactory enforcement of rules and regulations and intrusion into administrative matters leading to policy and implementation failures,” says the draft.
The policy says the focus should not be on increasing production as Punjab agriculture has reached a stage where the income of farmers cannot be continuously increased growing crops that centre procures. “The focus should be on producing what market demands and livestock sector has a potential to increase incomes substantially,” said the policy.
Secretary of the commission Balwinder Singh Sidhu said, Punjab’s (wheat-paddy) increase in production rate is (1.2% annually) higher than the national average (0.44%).
Referring to the problem of coordination he said the departments of cooperation, agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry be merged. He suggested the Punjab agricultural university to focus on intercropping.
“Lack of coordination among the ministries and departments is an important factor behind poor governance,” said the draft. “Also there is insufficient data, causing policy failure. We need to make a strong data
bank,” said Jakhar according to whom the exact number of farmers is not known. He suggested to include landless labourers as farmers.