Chandigarh: Nearly one lakh farmers of the state have increased the power load of agricultural tubewell after the Punjab government reduced the power load increase fee. The trend of increasing the power load is evident from how the groundwater level in the Malwa region is going down further. Most of the blocks in the region have been declared as dark zones.
Pertinently, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had announced to reduce the power load increase fee from Rs.4750 to Rs.2500 per horsepower on July 24.
As per the latest details, 1.03 lakh farmers of Punjab have increased the power load of agricultural tubewell and Powercom has received Rs.116 crore as its fee. Thus, due to reduction in fees, the farmers have saved about 100 crore rupees.
The highest number of 31,488 farmers have increased the load of agricultural motors in the four circles of West Zone namely Faridkot, Bathinda, Ferozepur and Muktsar falling in Malwa region of Punjab. At number two, 21,319 farmers have increased the load of agricultural motors in Circle Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Ropar and Mohali of South Zone.
As many as 17,783 farmers of Circle Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Tarn Taran and 14,754 farmers of Ludhiana and Khanna have increased the load of agricultural motors. Similarly, 17,434 farmers of Circle Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr of Doaba have increased the load of tubewell.
The malwa region has the highest number of farmers going forward to increase the power load, the biggest reason for which is the deepening of groundwater. Usually people install more horsepower motors at their own level while transformers are of low capacity. In such a situation, transformers get burnt. In 2019 also, when the fee for increasing the power load was reduced, 99,000 farmers had increased the load of motors.
So far, 4.30 lakh horsepower of tubewell has been increased after the reduction in fees. The target is to replace about 25,000 transformers, out of which 9,000 transformers have been replaced.
Government sources say that while the increase in load will benefit farmers, there will also be a reduction in PSPCL’s income.