Haryana govt forcibly giving solar pump connections to 20K farmers: Hooda

Chandigarh, June 15 (IANS) Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda on Thursday said the state government is forcibly giving solar pump connections to 20,000 farmers who applied for 10 BHP electric tubewell connections.

"Giving solar pumps has led to widespread anger among farmers as they are not effective in many areas. Farmers will remain deprived of irrigation, especially in winter. Not only this, the government has also imposed a condition on farmers to adopt micro-irrigation system in areas with groundwater below 30 metres, which is completely illegal," the Congress leader said.

"We, along with farmers, demand instead of imposing new rules on the farmers, they should be given options," he said.

The Leader of Opposition said 40,000 farmers have deposited the entire amount for the connection with the government. "There are so many more farmers who have applied for the connection, but from the very first day, the government is making excuses."

Hooda reminded the BJP-JJP government that during the Congress stint 1.74 lakh tubewell connections were given to farmers without any waiting period.

He said the government has no moral right to talk about groundwater conservation as the government had closed the Dadupur Nalvi canal, spread across 125 villages of Yamunanagar, Ambala and Kurukshetra districts.

"Not only this the Congress during its tenure encouraged the farmers to do drip irrigation for groundwater conservation. To encourage them, they were given subsidy of up to 100 per cent on drip irrigation, but now the farmers are not getting the benefit of the scheme," he added.

Hooda said the policies of the government have always been against the farmers and the common man and that is why the government "doesn't want to give any kind of relief to them".

"The Congress government had waived the electricity bills of Rs 1,600 crore of the farmers and the common man. Along with this, farmers' loans of Rs 2,136 crore were waived off, but the present government has never given a single paisa relief to any section," he pointed out.