Chandigarh: Implementing one of its biggest election promises, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab began Friday providing 300 units of free power each month across the state.
Announcing it, Chief minister Bhagwant Mann said in a tweet that while all previous governments took five years to keep their poll promises, his government has started its action to fulfil one of its major promises within three months of coming to power.
He also clarified that his government has waived off arrears of electricity bills pending till December 31, 2021, of all households. Mann has already said that the guarantee of giving Rs 1,000 per month to all women would also be fulfilled this year only.
Even though the final blueprint of the free power scheme would be approved by the council of ministers soon, the state government in its first budget has reserved a sum of Rs 1,800 crore for giving this free power scheme.
For the record, there are about 73.39 lakh domestic consumers in the state who stand to benefit from the scheme while there are over 60 lakh consumers who are estimated to consume up to 300 units of power a month.
This scheme would subsume the beneficiaries of the earlier scheme announced by the previous Congress government where all domestic consumers having a load of up to 1 kilowatt, got 200 units of free power.
Likewise, the earlier scheme of giving 200 units of power for free to the SC, BC and BPL consumers would also be subsumed in this scheme.
According to information, the total power subsidy bill of the state government this fiscal is expected to rise to Rs 15,846 crore while the state government also has to pay a power subsidy of Rs 7,117 crore from the previous years, which was not paid by the previous Congress government.
