Energy Minister Priyavrat Singh here on Monday announced that there would be no hike in electricity rate next year.
Replying to a query of media, Singh said that the process for hearing of different electricity companies is yet to commence, but it is for sure that there would be no hike in the electricity rates, despite the fact that heavy losses incurred by the power sector companies, the MP government is in no mood to hike power tariff.
He was talking to media persons here at the Publicity department’s auditorium on Monday.
The losses of the power sector companies in the state has mounted to Rs 47,000 cr, affirmed the Minister.
Several media reports while claiming that losses of the power generation and distribution companies have been running into several thousand crores have affirmed that the state could possibly see an upward power tariff revision shortly.
The Minister also claimed that the energy department has linked one power consumers with subsidised 100 unit-Rs 100 bill in the State and there are all around praises heaped on the Congress Government on social media as elsewhere.
Under Indira Grih Jyoti Yojana, a power subsidy scheme launched by the Kamal Nath Government, the State Government has started offering upto 100 units of electricity to all the households at Re 1 per unit for last couple of months.
Meanwhile, sounding on an aggressive stance against former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who has been urging power consumers not to pay electricity bills alleging hefty charges, Singh hinted that the State Government might resort to legal action against the senior BJP leaders for ‘misleading the power consumers’.
Chouhan in the past had made several appeals to consumers to not pay the electricity bills claiming that the Congress Government was slapping hefty bills on consumers.
The Energy Minister also slammed the Centre while accusing that the state wasn’t receiving its quota of coal from the Central Government for thermal power plants.
The Energy Minister informed that Indira Griha Jyoti Yojana has been implemented by the State Government for domestic consumers. Unsubscribing this from the Sambal scheme in the month of August, all domestic consumers, whose monthly consumption of 30 days is less than 150 units, is being given a bill of Rs 100 for consumption of 100 units. Domestic consumers belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes living below the poverty line will have to pay just Rs 25 for monthly consumption up to 30 units. He informed that arrangements have also been made to collect Rs 100 once in four months.
The Energy Minister said that more than one crore 86 thousand (92 percent) consumers have been benefited under this scheme so far. Under the scheme, a subsidy amount of about Rs 3,400 crore per year is being given by the Government.