NEW DELHI: The mega ‘power’ sop, which Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hopes would be a game changer in his quest to retain power in the national capital, was the top trending topic on social media on Thursday even as it was met with scepticism and contempt by the Opposition.
The announcement of the subsidy scheme, which is estimated to cost the exchequer over Rs 1,800 crore, stumped the opposition a day after Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) reduced fixed power charges in the national capital.
Discoms said the power subsidy scheme would be implemented in the same way as the other rebates offered by the government. According to a discoms official, the total amount billed to an electricity consumer is devised after factoring in the subsidy. Once the subsidy scheme is in force, households keeping their power consumption to within 200 units won’t be charged a penny, as the fixed charge and the consumption charge would be paid by the government.
Any further changes, if any, to this scheme would be finalised after a meeting between the CM and Power Minister Satyendra Jain. Under the Free Lifeline Electricity scheme, those burning less than 200 units of power won’t receive electricity bills.
Even in the face of an excruciating summer this year, the city coped fairly well with the increased power demand. According to the government, the peak power load in the capital this summer was 7,400 megawatts. In 2013, the city experienced power cuts to the tune of 11.7 crore units. In 2018, the figure dropped to 1.7 crore units, meaning the city experienced only 10% outages compared to five years back.
The transmission losses in the city have also gone down from 17 per cent in 2013 to 8 per cent this year.
“We are not siphoning off public money for ourselves. We are investing public money in schemes that will benefit them. Our politicians, ministers, MPs, MLAs and senior officers enjoy free power. But no one calls those freebies. All I am doing is extending those benefits to this country’s Aam Aadmi (common man),” Kejriwal said on Thursday.
The CM said the move will benefit at least 33 per cent consumers in the capital.