Villagers raise issue of inflated electricity bills with Harsimrat

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 10

Residents of various villages in the district on Friday raised the issue of inflated power bills with Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Harsimrat alleged that the Congress government was breaking the back of people to fill its coffers. Residents of villages in the district are getting a whopping power bill of Rs 2.5 lakh.

Addressing public meetings at Harraipur, Bhokhra, Goniana Mandi and Kothe Nathiana in the Bhucho Assembly constituency where Harsimrat was shown inflated power bills of lakhs of rupees, she said Congressmen had struck deals with private thermal plants and coal plant owners by deliberately putting up a weak defence in the apex court as well as before tribunals. “First of all, the government failed to defend the case under which private players were demanding Rs 1,400 crore from it on account of coal washing charges,” she said.

She said the state had now been asked to give Rs 1,400 crore to private players for which it had increased the power tariff, another Rs 1,100 crore under the same head was pending and would have to be paid soon. She said similarly the government did not make an appeal against a tribunal awarding penalising it Rs 1,602 crore for two and a half years deliberately and now its appeal had been struck down by the high court.

Harsimrat said it was condemnable that Congressmen were filling their own pockets and levying inflated bills on the poor and under-privileged besides increasing power tariff repeatedly.

“The repeated hikes in power tariff have put an additional burden of Rs 20,000 crore on Punjabis,” she said, adding that “this was another betrayal on the part of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh who had promised not to increase domestic rates and give power to the industry at Rs 5 per unit. The rate of power being supplied to the domestic and industrial sectors now hovers between Rs 8 to Rs 9 per unit,” she added.

Harsimrat said it was strange that after failing on all fronts and refusing to give jobs to youngsters, Capt Amarinder Singh was making statements that he would not leave his office till he fulfilled all the demands made to the youth. “This means that he does not have any intention of fulfilling any of the promises made to the youth in the next two years of his tenure,” she added.

The Bathinda MP also flayed the Finance Minister for issuing a circular stopping all development works in the state. She said no development happened in the last three years and by taking out this circular, Manpreet Badal had assured that not one brick would be laid in any village in the state during the next two years. “This is the reason why Punjab has come down on all parameters – be it education, health or social welfare,” Harsimrat added.