Post Rs 34K cr loan waiver, farmers want electricity bills written off

FARMER LEADERS Urge NCP chief Sharad Pawar to take up their cause

After a loan waiver of Rs. 34,000 crore, farmers have now demanded that their outstanding electricity bills worth more than Rs.19000 crore should also be written off. However, Power Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule promptly rejected the demand stating that there is no provision in the Electricity Act 2003 to waive off the outstanding bills.

“If we will think about outstanding of electricity bills towards various sectors, agriculture pumps have arrears worth Rs. 19131.34 crores followed by Rs. 6562.68 crore from permanently disconnected (PD) consumers,” Bawankule said, adding that the total outstanding of power bill has reached Rs. 31202.16 crore.

The minister also said, “There is no provision of write off power bills in the Electricity Act 2003. Maharashtra State Power Distribution Company (Mahadiscom) is an independent entity and it runs on recovery only. The Mahadiscom has not recovered electricity bill from farmers in the past three years as there was severe drought across the state. Farmers committed suicide and as a strategy to help farmers, the state had taken decision not to recover outstanding bills forcefully from farmers.”

Of the unpaid electricity bills, Ahmednagar and Solapur districts have the highest outstanding worth Rs. 1,300 crore each.

In the meantime, farmers leaders met Nationalist Congress Party chief Shard Pawar and urged him to intervene in the matter.

Farmers from Puntamba in Ahmednagar district, where the statewide strike of farmers began leading to the unprecedented loan waiver, recently met Sharad Pawar and requested him to convince Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to waive off the electricity bills used by agriculture pumps.

State finance department officials also said it is impossible now to waive off electricity bills as the state has already a burden of Rs. 34,000 crore towards the crop loan waiver.

Beginning 1 June, farmers from at least seven districts in Maharashtra took to the streets, shut down wholesale markets and vandalised trucks carrying vegetables. They spilt gallons of milk on the road, and sent vegetable prices soaring in major cities.

After 10 days of the strike, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the Rs 34,000 crore loan waivers. But a day after the chief minister’s announcement Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said states giving loan waivers should do it on their own.