Even as Punjab farmers have been hard hit due to the acute shortage of farm workers for sowing paddy, the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) has added to their woes by refusing to provide temporary power connections for tube wells. It has been a regular practice of the PSEB to grant temporary agricultural power (AP) connections for the past three years in succession. Last year, a little more than 27,000 applications for temporary AP connections were disposed of by June 20 against charges of Rs 1,500 per BHP. However, the farmers waiting for temporary connections this year are in for a big disappointment as the PSEB has not announced any schedule for this purpose, and will not do so at all if PSEB chairman Y.S. Ratra is to be believed. When asked about the temporary AP connections during the ongoing paddy season, he said there was no proposal for such connections this year as the board did not have enough power. Ratra disagreed when told that the denial of temporary power connections to farmers might lead to "kundis" (theft of power). "We have set up special teams to check theft of power during paddy sowing and those found indulging in the practice will have to face the music." B.S. Bath, engineer-in-chief, Central Zone, PSEB, declined to comment on the issue saying it was a policy matter. He, however, hastened to add that the board had met the demand of the farm sector for power through its own your transformer (OYT) scheme. In the Central zone alone, there were 3,200 odd valid applications for the OYT scheme, out of which more than 1,800 had already been granted connections. The PSEB had received nearly 86,000 applications under the OYT scheme and nearly 40,000 demand notes had already been issued before the cut-off date of May 31, 2008. But for those who had already deposited the charges against the demand notes issued by the PSEB, the scheme had now been suspended. Coming down heavily upon the PSEB authorities for denial of temporary connections, president, Bharti Kisan Union, Balbir Singh Rajewal said the farmers felt betrayed. "In the wake of the dismal state of availability of power, it would be a miracle if the PSEB is able to make the committed 8-hour uninterrupted power supply to farmers. As for those, who were looking towards temporary connections to run their tube wells, there is no other alternative but to make use of diesel, which will further add to the input cost," he lamented.