Agricultural consumers of electricity in the Daltonganj division have taken the electricity department for a ride, said sources.
Agriculture consumers of Daltonganj division of the electricity owe Rs 8.58 crores to the electricity department here and there is nothing as such to suggest any of these agricultural consumers are concerned about their huge dues on their heads.
Executive engineer of the Daltonganj division of the electricity S C Mishra said our Daltonganj division has only 8,899 agriculture consumers of electricity and with them our 8.58 crores of rupees lies as dues since long. We do not know how to get our payment. We do disconnections also, Mishra added.
The executive engineer of the division said there is hardly any agricultural consumer who does not owe our department money by way of not making payments of the bill or bills of electricity consumed by them for irrigation works in Kharif or Rabi season.
Mishra said the tariff of agriculture electricity is 5 rupees per unit of the electricity consumed for the agriculture purposes.
Again if an agriculture consumer uses one HP pump to irrigate his land then he is to pay 20 rupees per month for one HP pump. If it is a 2HP pump then the monthly charge will be 40 rupees, reminded the electricity executive engineer. In the ratio of 20 rupees the cost goes with the HP.
On being asked as to what relief in terms of supply of the electricity to agriculture consumers is available to which the executive engineer said our dues worth 8.58 crores are already with them and so what more one can talk of any relief which is to be given after all by the government.
He refused to make any comment whether it can be waived saying "It is a high level policy decision and he is nobody to give his comments."
However, he said we have increased the number of our agriculture feeders to supply power to our agriculture consumers to irrigate land in times like this when there is a drought like situation.
Farmers like Mohan Singh, Ram Bihari Yadav and Gulsher Ahmad Khan said as diesel price is still above 95 rupees per litre it is just not possible to reach water in our fields with a pump driven by diesel as it proves too costly.
Electricity is the cheapest mode for irrigation the farmers said adding that farmers ought to pay their bills as well.