Even as the Opposition castigating the Aam Aadmi Party government for announcing a hike in electricity tariff, Punjab Power Minister Harbhajan Singh on Tuesday defended the move with an assurance that the hike won’t affect the common people as the cost of increased electricity rates will be borne by the state government.

The Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) announced a hike in the power tariffs on Monday, a move which Opposition parties termed as the first gift of the ruling AAP to people after the party’s victory in the recently-concluded Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll. Slamming the move, they demanded withdrawal of the power tariff hike.

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The move came close on the heels of the AAP victory in the result of which was declared on Saturday. AAP candidate Sushil Kumar Rinku won the election by a margin of 58,691 votes.

As per the new tariff rates announced by the PSERC, power consumers under various categories will now have to pay 25 to 89 paise more for each unit and fixed charges per kilo watt. While the domestic consumers will have to pay up to Rs 15 per kilo watt as fixed additional charges, the non-residential consumer will have to pay 28 to 41 paise more per unit along with Rs 25 to Rs 30 as fixed charges.

In defence of the power tariff hike, the minister said the power tariff in many states is very high in comparison to that of Punjab. There has been no increase in electricity rates in the state for the last one year.

Singh justified the hike saying it was necessitated by the rising cost of power generation. At times coal has to be imported due to Union government policies. Additionally, the costs of installing new transformers are also increasing.

The minister assured that free power to farmers, power subsidy to industry and 600-unit free electricity for domestic consumers will continue as usual. As the power subsidy will continue, no scheme will be stopped, he added.

Lashing out at Opposition parties for their opposition to the power hike, the Cabinet minister said while the incumbent Bhagwant Mann Government has slightly increased the tariffs after a full one year without affecting the free-power scheme, the previous governments used to increase power rates several times in a year.

He said the AAP Government is consistently working on strengthening the Electricity Department by continuously recruiting employees.