State offers more power subsidy than Punjab
... but contributes much less to national foodgrain pool
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 29
Failure of pre-monsoon showers coupled with the mercury hovering over the 40° C mark have aggravated the power supply crisis in Punjab and Haryana. However, unlike Punjab, Haryana’s erratic power supply position has not much to do with the national food security project.

Haryana’s normal component of power subsidy to the farm sector is perhaps the second highest in the country after Andhra Pradesh. Unlike Punjab, it does not supply power to farmers free of cost but charges them 25 paise a unit for more than 4.5 lakh tube wells it has on its territory. It thus ends up paying Rs 40,000 a year for energising each of these tube wells. A gigantic task indeed.

Officially, the budgetary provision Haryana made for power subsidy to the farm sector in its 2008-09 Budget was Rs 2,800 crore. Compared to it, Punjab’s power subsidy to the farm sector is around Rs 2,600 crore. This excludes the cost of power it buys at higher rates to ensure eight-hour uninterrupted power supply to farmers’ tube wells.

Punjab also has the highest per capita consumption of power at 972 units against the national average of 700 units.

Haryana’s contribution to the national foodgrain pool is much less than even half of Punjab’s share. For example, in 2008-09, Haryana contributed 55 lakh tonnes of paddy against 120.74 lakh tonnes by Punjab. Similarly, in case of wheat, Haryana’s contribution is almost one-fifth of Punjab’s share. Central agencies procured 107.12 lakh tonnes of wheat this year against 19.25 lakh tonnes done by Haryana.

While Haryana earns less than three times from food procurement than the amount it gives in power subsidy to its farmers, in case of Punjab, income from the farm sector - procurement of foodgrains - is almost eight to 10 times than the power subsidy bill.

Because of a much larger quantity of foodgrains for the central pool, every year Punjab buys huge quantity of power at much higher rates from other surplus states.

To facilitate this purchase of power to keep the tube wells running for the paddy transplantation season, the state stands a guarantee to banks for providing instant loan up to Rs 6,600 crore. There is, however, no such provision in case of Haryana.

Haryana is a cash surplus state while Punjab has been under a heavy debt. Its state electricity board is running a debt of Rs 12,500 crore because of power supply to the farm sector.