Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has announced to ‘gherao’ Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s official residence in Chandigarh on January 7 to protest against the government’s dictatorial decision to hike electricity tariff in the State, pressing for a roll back on the decision.
AAP Sunam MLA Aman Arora and Barnala MLA Meet Hayer (Gurmeet Singh) on Friday said that every section of society was passing through economic hardships due to anti-people policies of the Government.
“Punjab Cabinet’s decision to jack up electricity tariff further by 36 paise per unit from January 1 would crush the common consumer,” they said.
They said that power tariff in the State was already on the higher side compared to other states of the country, despite being a state power surplus State.
Citing an example of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi Government, AAP MLAs said that it did not produce a single unit of electricity, but was providing cheaper electricity to the people there, saying that 22 lakh families were getting electricity bills worth zero rupee.
AAP leaders said that the Supreme Court had imposed a fine of Rs 1,424 crore on two of the three private thermal plants operating in the state.
“The government is raising the tariff by 36 paise per unit from the people to be paid by the two private players, which AAP won’t tolerate at any cost,” they said.