Free power to go in Punjab but subsidy to continue
Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service, December 1

Chandigarh
The two-member committee comprising Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and Industries Minister Manoranjan Kalia has reached a broad consensus on the issue of subsidies. All modalities were worked out at a meeting between the two early today after which Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was also informed. However, the government has decided to withhold the report for now in view of the forthcoming Winter Session of the Vidhan Sabha.

According to highly placed sources, the two- member committee has recommended doing away with free power and introducing an income-support scheme for the farmers wherein the farmers will get direct support from the government at regular intervals, based on a World Bank model. Further, the committee has advised the government to adopt several other measures of generating revenue from the rich and spare the poor.

Highly placed sources said the committee had agreed on areas that needed to be brought under the purview of higher taxation, but there was still a difference of opinion on the manner in which it should be done.

In case of subsidy on electricity for example, it has been proposed that the government will start issuing electricity bills and the farmers will receive vouchers from the collection centres that can then be exchanged for their full value from the designated cooperative banks.