Peasants to get cashback for saving power

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 22

Farmers are set to get cashback on the power they save while carrying out agricultural operations. For each unit of power saved, a direct benefit transfer of the cost of power saved will be made into their bank accounts.

The scheme will come up for formal approval before the Cabinet on Wednesday. The idea is to save depletion of groundwater and discourage wastage of power – which is provided free in the agricultural sector.

Sources in the Power Department told The Tribune that a pilot project was being launched by J PAL, funded by the World Bank. Initially, it is being started on six agricultural feeders in Fatehgarh Sahib, Nawanshahr and Jalandhar by involving 900 agricultural power consumers. The scheme is voluntary and the connections of all farmers who opt for it will be metered.

The agricultural feeders are already metered and the average power consumed by consumers attached to the feeder will be worked out on the basis of a formula devised by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and the state Agriculture Department, after taking into account each consumer’s landholding and the crop sown.

The individual connections of farmers will be metered and those who consume less power (than what his consumption is worked out, based on the formula) will get a cashback for the power saved.

Officials in the department said the project was aimed at lessening the use of underground water through tubewells, adding that lesser power consumed would also help save on free power given to the agricultural sector. This fiscal, free power worth Rs 7,700 crore is being given to farmers in the state. Almost 30 per cent of the power consumption is in the agricultural sector.