Free Power To Agriculture Segment To Continue: Badal

Kauli (Patiala): In spite of sharp condemnation by business and trade diplomats over the recent power tariff increase, Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal stated that free power to the agriculture sector will carry on.

Badal added that 70% of the agriculturists in Punjab were marginal and the administration was dedicated to offer free power to them. Reacting to a question whether the commercial and industrial consumers were being made to pay more owing to free power to agriculturists and feebler segments of society, Badal stated his administration was sharing the load considerably.

“The BJP has been taken into confidence on the issue. Moreover, the 9% increase in power tariff was less as compared 12% in Haryana,” he said.

The CM was in Kauli, Patiala to attend an occasion to mark the death anniversary of ex Akali MLA Jasdev Singh Sandhu.

He termed the Goa assembly of the SAD-BJP heads as “productive as many significant verdicts pertaining to the forthcoming parliamentary polls have been taken”.

It provided the leaders an opportunity to talk about administration working and departmental setbacks, he added.

The CM accepted willingly the verdict of a Delhi Court to reopen the anti-Sikh riots case against senior Congress head Jagdish Tytler.

The CM stated that Sikhs still had anticipations for integrity.

Others attended the function Cabinet Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra, Rajya Sabha MP Balwinder Singh Bhunder, SAD leader Tejinder Singh Sandhu, Baba Lakha Singh (Nanaksar Kaleran) and chief of Sant Samaj Baba Harnam Singh.