LAHORE, Feb 25: The farmer bodies on Sunday reacted sharply to rise in power tariff and apprehended that it would only add to the cost of production, further compromising economic viability of the farming sector.

Talking to Dawn, the farmers’ representatives feared that the rise would also add to the frustration of farmers and compromise their efficiency in the long run.

It would further accentuate farmers’ problems, as growers in Punjab and Sindh were already being charged higher than those in the rest of the country, they claimed.

“It is height of irresponsibility,” says Muhammad Idrees of the Farmers Associate Pakistan (FAP). The government, he alleged, was passing the cost of Wapda’s inefficiency on the poor farmers. If the government continued doing so, there was hardly any reason for Wapda to improve its efficiency, he said. The pattern had been going on for over a decade, and the present government also failed to break it, he added.

He said the government must have calculated before announcing the rise that from where growers would pay for it. “Has their income gone up? If not, why they are being burdened,” he wondered.

The government must come up with a relief package for farmers, especially for running tube-wells, otherwise, it only ran the risk of compromising on its food security, he insisted.

Rabia Sultan of the Punjab Water Council is of the opinion that the government has only resorted to its habit of giving with one hand and snatching it back with the other. It had only recently announced some relief on fertilizers but quickly neutralised it by raising power charges, she said.

She was of the view that the farmers in Punjab would be specially having a hard time, as only they were paying the power bill. Most of the farmers in other provinces hardly paid their bills, she said. Wapda documents could confirm the fact that people in the Punjab were paying exorbitant bills while users in other provinces were being provided power on subsidised rates, she argued. The three distribution companies, which are earning profits were from Punjab, she said in support of his argument. The three companies — HesCo, QesCo and PesCo — are running in sheer loss and being managed at the cost of Punjab, she claimed. The current rise would naturally hurt those paying the bills, she said and added: “The government should have considered farmers plight before taking such a drastic decision, penalizing farmers from Punjab.”