Drainage dept fails to pay power bill of shallow tubewells; supply cut

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, June 9

The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has disconnected the power supply of 280 shallow tubewells along the Sirhind Feeder canal as the Drainage Department has not paid the bill for the past four years.

The Drainage Department had installed the tubewells to deal with the seepage of water.

The outstanding amount has now gone over Rs 3 crore and the department has requested the PSPCL to transfer the tubewell connections on the name of some farmers.

This move has irked the PSPCL officials who have turned down the request and asked the authorities concerned to first clear the outstanding amount.

These shallow tubewells were installed under the NABARD project at Rs 5.3 crore in 2001 and the department had earlier too failed to pay the electricity bills for a long period.

Even the state government’s high-level panel on water-logging headed by the Chief Minister’s technical adviser Lt Gen BS Dhaliwal (retd) had mentioned this in his report in 2013. The report said, “Initially, these tubewells worked well. But due to non-receipt of maintenance and running expenses, the power connections were disconnected and these stopped working within a year in 2002. These did not work till 2011. Later, 237 were re-energised, but 43 could not be re-energised.”

Gulshan Nagpal, Executive Engineer, Drainage Department, Gidderbaha, admitted that the electricity bills of the shallow tubewells were not paid for 4-5 years.

“The shallow tubewells have no utility now. The water level has gone down by 4 ft. When these tubewells were installed, the water level was high, available on just 1-ft depth from the surface. The state government has mooted a proposal to transfer the shallow tubewells on the name of farmers for irrigation as well as anti-waterlogging purposes,” said Nagpal.

Rajinder Kumar, Executive Engineer, PSPCL, Gidderbaha, said, “The Drainage Department has not paid the electricity bills of above Rs 3 crore for running the shallow tubewells. Hence, we have disconnected the power supply and also turned down their request of transfer of the connections on the name of farmers.”