Decision to bill agriculture tubewells will not be tolerated: Dhindsa

Sangrur: Senior Akali Dal leader and Rajya Sabha member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa today said that the decision to introduce agriculture tubewells bill would never be tolerated.

The farmers of Punjab is going through a very difficult economic crisis.

Agriculture has become a loss-making business.

Due to this, “the farmers are not even able to pay the electricity bill. This is a very sensitive issue,” Dhindsa said.

The Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh should not take any decision without the consent of the representatives of the farmer’s organizations and political parties.

He termed the decision taken by administration after the cabinet meeting on agricultural tubewells as very unfortunate and said that this way the farmers will become more frustrated.

In a press note issued, Dhindsa said that the Chief Minister had earlier appealed to his ministers and MLAs to give up free electricity and when they did not intervene, one could easily guess what would be the economic condition of the common farmer.

Rejecting the system of crediting the subsidy of tubewells from the outset, he said that it would put the farmers in a bigger predicament as most of the tubewells of the farmers were named after the elders.

Dhindsa said that most of the schemes for depositing money directly in the accounts have failed. Due to this, this scheme is not acceptable to the farmers. He said that farmers have contributed a lot in coping with the coronavirus. On the other hand, the sale of artificial seeds has harmed the farmers. Farmers are committing suicide due to the difficulty and compulsion of not being able to repay their loans. In such a situation, imposing more burden on the farmers is a shock.