Punjab’s about 90 per cent households are getting “zero” power bills which is expected to increase in January this year, said the state Power Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO on Tuesday.
He said that the earlier governments used to betray people with fake promises to garner votes but the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led Government has fulfilled the promise of “zero electricity bill” in the very first year of their tenure.
“Free 600 units of electricity bimonthly or 300 units of electricity monthly has been granted for all domestic consumers, with annual subsidy benefit of Rs 5,629 crore along with continuation of subsidy of Rs three per unit up to seven KW for domestic consumers with annual benefit of Rs 1,278 crore,” he said.
The Minister said that besides providing free power to all residential units, all pending bills up to December 31, 2021, were also waived off; and all such disconnected connections have been restored.
“The previous governments lured the farmers with free power to farmers for tubewells but the farmers were never given uninterrupted power supply due to which they had to face lot of problems for irrigation. The State Government has not just continued free power to the agricultural consumers but, for the first time, ensured eight hours regular power supply during the paddy season without any power cut,” he said.
In another incentive for the farmers, the Government has reduced the tube-wells load enhancement fees from Rs 4750 per BHP to Rs 2500 per BHP which resulted in benefitting 1.87 lakh farmers.
The Minister said that with the State Government’s concerted efforts, Pachhwara Coal Mine has been operationlized by settling long pending litigations, forest clearance, environment clearance, ground water clearance, mining lease , consent to establish, consent to operate, mine opening permission and railway transport clearances.
“Pachhwara Coal Mine, having mining capacity of seven million tonnes per annum (MTPA) was allotted by the Union Ministry of Coal to PSPCL on March 31, 2015, and was not in operation for the last seven years. With its operationalization, about Rs 500 crore would be saved annually,” he said.
After a gap of eight years, a freight train carrying coal from Pachhwara Central coal mine in Jharkhand reached Ropar Thermal Plant on December 16, 2022, where it was received by the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann who termed it as a giant leap towards making Punjab power surplus.
