Amritsar - With power playing truant and prices of petrol and diesel on an all-time high, farmers in the district are at their wits ends. With paddy season approaching, farmers have urged the government to either ensure 24-hour power supply to run their tubewells or provide fuel at subsidised rates. The farmers said even after Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's assurance of eight-hour regular supply, the ground situation was pathetic. "Despite the CM's assurance, electricity is being given only for a couple of hours. We are worried about how to deal with the situation once the sowing begins,' said Shingar Singh, a farmer from Sabran village. Saying that paddy requires well-watered fields, Harinder Singh, another farmer from the same village, feared immense losses if nothing was done to bail them out. "While the district administration is ensuring that paddy is not sowed before time, citing depletion in the water table, they have failed to suggest ways to keep paddy fields well irrigated,' said Harbans Singh, a farmer from Nathu Chak village. When contacted, Chaman Singh Suman, Chief Engineer (Border Range), said efforts were on to ensure that farmers got the promised power supply and faced no hurdles in irrigating their fields.