By IANS
Chandigarh : On a day when Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal urged industrialists to invest in the state and promised to make Punjab a power surplus state in five years, his government increased the power tariff.
The increased power tariff, announced by Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission Chairman Jai Singh Gill Wednesday, is 8-12 percent more than the existing rates for various categories.
The dominant farming community will continue to get free power. The state’s distribution agency, the Punjab State Electricity Board, will get a subsidy of Rs.21 billion from the state government to overcome losses due to the distribution of free power to the farming sector, the government assured.
The tariff has been increased for domestic and commercial users. While in the domestic category, the increase is up to 31 paise per unit, in the commercial and industrial sectors it is over 25 paise per unit.
In the domestic category, the minimum charge per unit will now be Rs.2.40.
“Punjab’s industry is already suffering. New investment is not coming. Costs have gone up in labour and raw material. This tariff increase will be a setback for industry,” said Sanjeev Sharma, a Ludhiana-based industrialist.
But commission chairman Gill justified the hike. “This increase was necessary as the electricity board was suffering losses,” he told reporters here.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Badal, at a meeting here with the region’s industrialists, tried to woo investors by promising to make Punjab a state with surplus power in the next five years.