BHOPAL: Only 1.46 lakh or barely 2.3% of the 62 lakh ‘poor’ powerconsumers ‘consume’ about 30% of the subsidy of Rs 150 crore given by government under flat power bill scheme every month. They will now continue to do so: courtesy government’s U-turn on its decision to cap 100 units electricity consumption for subsidy.
In a U-turn on Friday, the state government declared that the beneficiaries of the previous Saral Bijli Bill Scheme who have now been included under Indira Griha Jyoti Yojana will get power at Rs 100 and for consumption beyond 100 units, the maximum they will have to pay is Rs 200. This which was the amount they paid under the previous scheme.
In a statement, energy minister Priyavrat Singh said that now consumers will be provided power at Rs 100 for 100 units and for consumption above 100 units they will have to pay Rs 200 maximum.
Last week, state government had announced that the beneficiaries will have to pay only Rs 100 till 100 units and costs above 100 units will be borne by the beneficiary itself as per the power tariff fixed by Madhya Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The move taken last week would have restricted the subsidy taken by these 1.46 lakh consumers who are consuming more than 200 units per month and are consuming Rs 43 crore out of the total Rs 150 crore monthly subsidy being given to 62 lakh consumers who are labourers of the unorganised sector, said sources. Thus, more than 60 lakh consumers are jointly getting a subsidy Rs 100 crore, while 1.46 lakh are getting Rs 43 crore.
And out of these 1.46 lakh there are 35,000 consumers whose power consumption is above 500 units per month, thus on an average they are getting subsidy of Rs 3,600 per month but are only paying Rs 200 per month. A consumption of 500 units power is normally the consumption of the upper middle class families and not labourers, said sources.
Capping of power consumption upto 100 units per month would have restricted the subsidy for any user to only Rs 472 per month which is not possible now, said sources.