Gujarat Govt to review ryots' power tariff

In a major climbdown from its earlier stand, the state government has agreed to restore snapped electricity connections of defaulting peasants, restart transformers supplying electricity to farmers and reconsider the current electricity tariff for them.

This has been an outcome of meetings that continued late on Saturday night and on Sunday between the state government and the representatives of the farmers organisations "" Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and Gujarat Khedut Sangharsh Samiti.

The central government had rushed in Union law minister Arun Jaitley and other top functionaries to the state to resolve the issue. Veteran RSS pracharak and Khedut Mandal founder Laljibhai Patel had embarked on a hunger strike in Ahmedabad in support of the BKS agitation.

Although Patel ended his 'maunvrat' (vow of silence) on Sunday, he continued his hunger strike, as the electricity tariff hike for farmers has not been rolled back completely.

Late on Saturday night, the government agreed to form a five-member committee comprising agriculture minister Bhupendra Chudasama, revenue minister Kaushik Patel, industries minister Anil Patel, energy minister Saurabh Dalal and law minister Ashok Bhatt to reconsider the matter.

The move, however, puts yet another question mark on the government's attempts to reform the power sector and lead the Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB) to profits.

"The government has agreed to switch on transformers, restore snapped electricity connections. And will be held on January 27 to look into the electricity tariff hike. Laljibhai Patel will end the hunger strike only after a complete rollback of tariff is announced," said Ravjibhai Patel of GKSS on Sunday.

Bhupendra Chudasama could not be reached.

Earlier, matters took a turn for the worse when the government began switching off transformers giving electricity to farmers and even snapped electricity connections of over a 100 farmers since the operation began about ten days ago.

On recommendations of the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission (GERC), the regulatory body for electricity production and distribution in the state, the government had announced in July last that electricity tariff for the farming sector will be increased three-fold.

This step was necessary to reduce mounting power subsidies which amounts to over Rs 55 crore a month and also to pave way for the reforms in the power sector.

The government aimed at bringing down the subsidy to around Rs 35 crore per month.

The government had raised tariff in July last and announced concessions in October. BKS has not agreed to the new rates as well.

They are demanding a full rollback before farmers will resume paying electricity bills.