LAHORE: The Kisan Board Pal(istan has criticised the federal government for withdrawing its decision of giving relief to the electricity consumers by abolishing fuel price adjustment (FPA) charges.

In a statement here on Sunday, Amanullah Chattha, the vice president of the farmers` body, said the relief announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was withdrawn days after its announcement leaving the consumers high and dry. He said Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir had announced recovery of the FPA from the farm tube wells and residential connections which was condemnable.

Mr Chattha said that despiteheavy power loadshedding the cost of bills for farm tube wells had gone up from thousands of rupees to hundreds of thousands of rupees while higher rates of diesel were making it impossible for the farmers to run their tube wells on alternative sources of energy. He said that the manifold increase in the power tariff was overburdening the farming community and destroying the rural economy, which would lead to influx of the rural population towards urban centres, creating civic and other problems in the cities.

The farmers` leader demanded the government immediately withdraw the recent hike in power tariff to provide relief to the farmers and to revive the rural economy.