CHANDIGARH , June 22 — To facilitate farmers sow paddy the Punjab State Electricity Board will officially allow them to use “kundi” to operate tubewells .

This facility , however, is subject to certain conditions laid down by the PSEB. A farmer shall have to deposit Rs 5,000 and provide 110 metres of wire to draw connection from the transformer. The “kundi” connection will be further subjected to the load available at a given transformer.

This was stated by the Minister for Power, Mr Sikandar Singh Maluka, while talking to TNS here today.

Punjab has nearly eight lakh agricultural pump sets which contributed substantially to ushering in of the Green Revolution.

Like the Own Your Telephone scheme, the PSEB, has also notified Own Your Tubewell scheme. While power connection to pending applicants are being released as per the Board’s sales regulations, under the proposed policy on OYT the following guidelines have been framed. The minister said the scheme was intended to expedite the clearance of the backlog .

Under the OYT scheme, an applicant will have to deposit Rs 5,000 in lumpsum , which will be non-refundable special fee. An additional Rs 5,000 is to be deposited as special “connection charges”. The onus of supplying standardised transformer of given ratings will also rest with the applicant. The Board will make available list of commercial organisations.

Such transformers are to be mounted on a single pole and for which an appropriate design is avail able.

The guidelines, it is apparent, can only be followed by well-off farmers. One of these guidelines states that the entire cost of the OYT is to be borne by the applicant. Even for the cost of 11 KV line, erection of transformer etc the financial responsibility will be of the farmer. If two of them were to share the cost the 11 KV line, the Board would allow, but each will have to have a separate transformer for his tubewell.