Chittorgarh (Madhya Pradesh): Members of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by MLA Chandrabhan Singh Aakya staged protests against steep hike in power rates in the Congress-ruled state and demanded a roll-back.
BJP media in-charge Manoj Parikh said that a number of BJP members including district general secretary Kamlesh Purohit, Mahila Morcha city president Rashmi Saxena and party workers gathered at the collectorate.
Raising slogans against Gehlot government, they handed over the memorandum to the additional collector and mentioned that fuel surcharge has been hiked to Rs 60 paise per unit from Rs 18 paise. Power rates have been hiked to Rs 11.9 rupees from Rs 5.5 in 2018.
In his address, MLA Akya said that Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam (electricity generation company) has a total of 13 power generation plants including thermal and hydel with a capacity of 8597.35 MW but production got reduced to just 3,500 to 4,000 citing shortage of coal and technical glitches.
Despite having wind energy and solar energy apparatus producing 17,143 MW power, residents of the state are entitled to only 3,326 MW of power.
Comprehensively, out of the total power production, only 23 per cent of the electricity is being used, while 77 per cent is being given to private companies located outside the state. They also demanded to roll back increased power rates, giving relief to its residents.
