BHOPAL, 26 October 2003 — Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh is in fresh trouble ahead of assembly elections over its offer of free power to small farmers and waiving of electricity dues for the whole of this year. The Jabalpur High Court has asked the state government to get a clearance from the Election Commission before the implementation of its order.
The court has ruled that the Election Commission should decide whether the government decree violated its model code of conduct. It also asked the government to pay within 14 days 500 million rupees out of a total of 1.84 billion that it owed to the Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board.
The high court order came on a public interest petition filed by the president of consumer rights group Nagrik Upbhokta Margdarshak Manch, P.G. Nazpandey. Nazpandey had challenged the government’s order of Sept. 27 by which small farmers were given free power connections and users of pumps of up to five horse power were exempted from paying electricity bills for the current year.
He argued that the government order violated the Election Commission’s model code. The court fixed Nov. 7 as the next date of hearing.
The freebies will benefit one million farmers who typically use a small pump to water their fields and 200,000 Dalits who have a single bulb connection in their homes. These add another eight billion rupees to the electricity board’s subsidy bill.
Reacting to the high court order, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh said his government would examine it in detail and then decide whether to go in appeal or accept it. He rejected suggestions that the court order was a setback for the state government ahead of the elections.
Asked if it was not immoral for the government to announce the subsidies 10 days before the model code of conduct went into force, Singh said: “You can say that but the fact remains that we have been considering this for a long time.”
He said the state had been hit by drought for three consecutive years and farmers were unable to pay their electricity bills. The chief minister said the government did try to recover power dues in installments but it did not work out as out of the total dues only 19 percent could be recovered despite “our best efforts.”
“I thought then it would be a better idea to write off the dues for the year,” he added.
Singh said it would not be a problem for his government to pay the state electricity board 500 million rupees.
