Channi bats for transfer of power subsidy into farmers’ accounts

Monday, 22/02/2016

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BATHINDA/ MANSA: Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader in the Punjab assembly Charanjit Singh Channi has called for giving subsidy on power in cash to farmers.

State Legislature Party leader Charanjit Singh Channi (centre) with the family of a suicide victim farmer in Mansa on Saturday. 

Channi, who visited suicide victim families in villages in Mansa district on Saturday, said that the sum of ` 5,500 crore, being spent by the Punjab government on providing free power to farmers, must be transferred into the bank accounts of farming families equally. 

He said that instead of making payment to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited, the state government should pay it to farmers so that they can pay the power bills themselves. He said that the move would help farmers financially and especially benefit small farmers a lot. 

SCHEME BENEFITS

Listing the benefits of the scheme, Channi said under the present system, the cost of power as input was not being considered by the Commission For Agricultural Costs And Prices (CACP) while computing the minimum support price of crops and the free power being provided to run tubewells was getting neutralised due to less than proportionate increase in the MSP for various crops. 

Channi said the alternative was to provide direct subsidy by transferring it to the accounts of the farmers for which the finer modalities could be worked out. 

BENEFIT AT TWO LEVELS

He said farmers would get benefit at two levels under this system. “While they will get direct subsidy, the cost of running tubewell would be included by the CACP while calculating the MSP. If distributed equally among 10.53 lakh farming families, every family would get ` 50,000 per year,” he said, saying the system should be fine-tuned in consultation with farmers’ organisations. 

Channi said that it will make sure that the farmers, who are not getting benefits of free power supply due to one reason or the other will also get benefitted, especially the marginalised ones and the MSP would also be higher than the present level. 

‘WRITE OFF LOANS’

He demanded that the entire institutional and non-institutional loan of far mers and farm workers be written off by declaring the same as nonperforming assets as was being done in case of big industrial sharks. 

He visited seven families of the farmers who committed suicide in the last two months in Mansa district. He visited families of Gurmail Singh and Gurdeepsingh at Bodawal village; Resham Singh of Khaara village, Amandeep Singh, Gurpreet Singh of Bhaini Bhagha village; Kala Singh at Ralla village and Nachattar Singh of Joga village. Channi also blamed the SAD-BJP government for the steep rise in suicide by farmers in the state.