Electricity Amendment Bill: A Reform That Can Empower Farmers, Not Burden Them 

November 26, 2025

Sheena Sandhu

For decades, India’s power sector has carried the weight of accumulated subsidies, rising technical losses, and chronic inefficiencies. Farmers, paradoxically, have been both beneficiaries and victims of this system: beneficiaries of subsidised tariffs, and victims of poor quality supply, unpredictable outages, and delayed connections.

The draft Electricity Amendment Bill seeks to rewrite this script. Yet, farmer unions have mounted a loud opposition campaign, warning of tariff shocks, corporatisation, and erosion of rights. These anxieties are not trivial. But they are also not fully aligned with what the Bill actually proposes.

At its core, the Bill attempts to restore financial viability to the distribution sector, while preserving the State’s ability to subsidise electricity for priority consumers—including agriculture. It promises what has been missing for years: sustainability.

The promise: more reliable supply for agriculture

The most urgent problem rural India faces today isn’t tariff—it is reliability.

From Punjab to Maharashtra, farmers repeatedly complain of:

• late-night power supply,
• unstable voltage,
• erratic three-phase availability,
• motor burnouts, and
• damaged pumps.

All of this stems from one fact: DISCOMs are financially stressed beyond repair.

Reforms that stabilise DISCOM finances hold a direct promise for agriculture: better quality supply, predictable hours, lower hardware losses, and reduced downtime.

That is not a minor gain.

Subsidies are not being scrapped — they are being formalised

A central claim of protesting farmer groups is that subsidies will disappear. The Bill does not say that.

Subsidies will continue—only the route will change:

instead of discounts being embedded inside tariffs, States will transfer the subsidy amount directly to DISCOMs in a transparent manner.

This matters.

It ensures:

• budgets match commitments,
• DISCOMs are not left waiting for dues, and
• farmers are not punished through outages when States delay payments.

If anything, subsidy certainty works in farmers’ favour.

Competition is not automatically privatisation

Another charge is that the Bill will “hand over power to private companies”.

Competition in distribution does not automatically mean privatisation of assets.

It means farmers can demand better service standards, and regulators can benchmark performance.

The farmer’s objective is not who supplies power—it is how reliable, affordable and timely the supply is.

The present monopoly has not served them well.

Why resistance is understandable — but incomplete

Farmer unions carry the memory of structural shocks.They also worry about creeping tariffs.

Their mistrust of reform is rooted in experience.

These concerns deserve attention, not dismissal.

But the question is:

Should reform be rejected outright, or shaped in a way that strengthens farmer protections?

Insisting on scrapping the Bill entirely risks locking farmers into the same poor supply regime for another decade.

That would be the greater injustice.

What farmers should demand instead

 Instead of an absolutist rejection, farmer bodies could press for:

1. Legally guaranteed subsidy continuity not just policy assurance.
2. Written commitments on minimum hours of agricultural supply
3. Penalties for voltage fluctuations and pump damage
4. Clear grievance and compensation mechanisms
5. Timelines for rural feeder upgrades

These are achievable, negotiable, monitorable.

They would transform the Bill from a fear into a guarantee.

The bottom line

Reform is always uncomfortable. Status quo is always easier to defend. But the status quo has failed the farmer. The Electricity Amendment Bill is not flawless. But to label it anti-farmer is to miss the larger point.If implemented with accountability and safeguards,it can deliver what farmers need most:

predictability, reliability, sustainability.

The opportunity lies not in rejecting the Bill—but in shaping it.

And for the farmer, that could be the difference between dependency and empowerment.

(The writer is a retired civil servant, views are personal.)