Will move HC over ‘hefty’ power charges, say Punjab shrimp farmers
Punjab Shrimp Growers’ Association plans to challenge high power rates in court, citing unfair treatment and demanding subsidies to support shrimp farming.
Members of the Punjab Shrimp Growers’ Association, during a meeting at Muktsar’s Enakhera village on Monday, decided to approach the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) against the state government’s alleged biased policy for not treating their power connections as agricultural but continue to charge “hefty” commercial rates. The association said it would boycott all events of the state government.
Association president Sarup Singh Sandhu said about 250 farmers were associated with a pilot project started by the Punjab government in 2016 to make huge tracts of uncultivable land in the southwest districts of the state a hub of shrimp cultivation.
The association charged the state fisheries minister with not pursuing their long-pending demand. They said that officials from the state fisheries department favoured extending power subsidies for shrimp farmers but the political dispensation ignored the recommendation.
Sandhu said the association has been citing the Andhra Pradesh model, where shrimp farmers are charged ₹1.50 per unit for the electricity, whereas the Punjab authorities charge about ₹7 per unit.
Another shrimp farmer, Rupinder Pal Singh, said hundreds of hectares of land in this area are marred by brackish underground water, making the land unsuitable for conventional farming.
“The pilot project of the shrimp farming gave us hope of earning from the wasteland and farmers made huge investments. The shrimp farming season began in April, but the high-power rate slab is restricting farmers from venturing into the initiative to face the high-cost input. The association demands a subsidy in electricity charges for shrimp farmers on par with others,” he added.