Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA Bikram Singh Majithia on Tuesday said the consumers were still paying electricity bills as per the old rates and that chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s claim on having slashed power rates by ₹3 per unit was a “blatant lie”.
Producing new bills received by consumers at a press conference in Amritsar, Majithia said Channi was trying to deceive Punjabis as was done by Amarinder Singh by making false promises. Channi had even gone one step further by taking credit for the reduction of power bills by spending crores of rupees advertising a lie, he added.
The cabinet also cleared the proposal of slashing power rates following which posters were put up everywhere, he said. “But the truth is entirely different. The power tariff has not been reduced in any category,” the MLA said.
He said the CM had lied by stating that the erstwhile SAD-BJP government had entered a power purchase agreement (PPA) with renewable energy producers to buy electricity at ₹17.28 per unit. “The matter of the fact is that the Central Electricity Commission during the tenure of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had decided the tariff of ₹17.28 per unit for a project of 9 megawatt for which the central government bore the cost of ₹12.50 per unit,” he claimed.