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Power is free again for farmers in Punjab


The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday rolled back its decision on payment of power bills by farmers and restored the facility of free electricity for their agricultural tubewells with immediate effect.

The state government had, earlier this year, introduced a system under which farmers were made to pay a part of the power bills which were to be reimbursed to them as “productivity bonus”.

The proposal to roll back the decision was not part of the Cabinet's agenda but was brought up by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal towards the end of the meeting. An official spokesman said the decision was taken because a majority of the farmers were facing difficulty in getting the payment of productivity bonus from the Powercom as most of the tubewell connections were in the name of their father or even grandfather.