PATIALA: Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) staged a mass dhama outside the headquarters of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) here on July 18 blocked its main gate as well as traffic on Mall Road for over three hours Farmers from all over the State converged here to participate in a mass dhama-cum-rally organized to high-light the “rampant corruption” in the board and also to launch its anti-corruption drive against the department from now While addressing the farmers the BRU All-India secretary Balbir Singh Raje said that instructions had been sent fo the BKU units at the block-level to collect affidavits from the farmers Against the concemed power officials for having paid the amount as bribe for getting power connections.
The former Member of Parliament and president of the All-India BKU B S. Mann in his address to the farmers said that the farmers were not getting enough power supply round-the-clock to meet their irrigation requirements for paddy crop. Much of the power supply shown in the records to have been made to agriculture sector Was in fact being diverted to the industrial sector Therefore agriculture sector got erratic and low voltage supply and that top hardly four hours a day badly affecting farm operations. Alleging pilferage of power supply from the agriculture sector to the industrial sector by PSEB officials Mann demanded an Inquiry into this scandal. He said (hat of the total irrigated area only one third was being irrigated with tubewells The water table in Punjab had gone down Mann said and added that if river water was not supplied by diverting the water now being given to Haryana and Rajasthan the agricultural land may turn barren in the next decade.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 22, 1994
