Punjab Government on Wednesday waived power bills of those having electricity connection of up to 2 kW — a move expected to put an estimated additional burden of Rs  1,200 crore on the State exchequer.

As many as 53 lakh households are expected to be covered under the decision, taken during a Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday. The state Cabinet also decided that disconnected electricity connections of consumers, who could not pay their bills, will also be restored.

The announcements were made by the Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi while addressing the media after the meeting. “We today decided that consumers having up to two kw load, who constitute 80 percent of total consumers, their arrears will be waived and the government will bear this,” he said.

Channi said that power connections of about 55,000 to one lakh households have been disconnected. “We discussed this in the Cabinet and decided to roll out the waiver from today itself. Only the pending bills will be waived off. The consumers will have to pay their bills from this month onwards,” he added.

Maintaining that the Government would bear the burden for the sake of the poor, the Chief Minister said that the waiver would mean a burden of Rs 1200 crore on the state exchequer, which could even be more as these are just the estimates.

He also announced that the reconnection fee of Rs 1500 too would be borne by the government.

A committee at the tehsil-level will verify the power bills before the pending bills are cleared by the government.

Channi, who also holds the Mining portfolio, said that the Government was coming out with a new policy on sand mining soon. “We will soon end the sand mafia. We are working day and night to find out ways how to break the nexus that was facilitating the mafia,” he added.