Withdraw Electricity (Amendment) Bill, farm laws: AIPEF

The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) on Thursday said that it supports the farmers' movement against the Centre's new farm laws and also demanded that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020, be withdrawn.

The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) on Thursday said that it supports the farmers' movement against the Centre's new farm laws and also demanded that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020, be withdrawn. The organisation called for scrapping of the farm laws, alleging these would introduce privatisation at every step and that this was not in the interest of the country. "In the draft amendment of Electricity Act 2003 through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020, the AlPEF had strongly opposed the proposal of the government to eliminate subsidy in electricity tariff. While the government had proposed the procedure of DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), this was not agreed to by AIPEF as it amounts to snatching the subsidy of power to farmers," Chairman AIPEF Shailendra Dubey said.

The proposal of DBT would lead to huge economic hardship to farmers who would have to pay electricity bills of their tube wells while there was no guarantee of matching DBT payments by the state governments, he said. The proposal of DBT had been strongly objected by most of the states, Dubey claimed. The present move of the government to introduce and implement the farm laws is a part of the overall strategy to introduce privatisation at every step which is not in the larger interest of the country, the AIPEF said. The AIPEF while giving full support to the struggle of farmers across the country, has asked the government to withdraw or scrap the farm laws recently passed in parliament.

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