Ahead of poll year, Haryana CM says no hike in power tariffs

Arvind Kejriwal in a rally held in Kurukshetra in 2022 had stated, “We have made availability of power for 24 hours daily in Delhi. Do you want 24-hour electricity supply in Haryana too? In Delhi, we have not only given round- the-clock electricity but it is also free. Do you want free electricity? The government needs to be changed, if you need free electricity. Khattar sahab is not going to give free electricity.”

On Thursday, chief minister Khattar said that during the financial year of 2022-2023, in category one, Rs 2 per unit was charged from zero to 50 units of electricity; while Rs 2.50 was charged from 51 to 100 units. In category two, Rs 2.75 was charged for 0 to 150 units, Rs 5.25 for 150 to 250 units, Rs 6.30 for 251 to 500 units, and Rs 7.10 for 501 to 800 units.

In the next year as well, there will be no changes in fixed rates for categories one and two for domestic consumers, Khattar said.

The chief minister then went on to say that power tariffs are decided by the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission and not the government, before going on to laud the commission for setting a great example of power management, wherein despite the less availability of electricity at many times, it managed to supply electricity to all consumers.

The chief minister said that the subsidy to the agriculture sector will continue as before. Stating that ‘power saving is power generation’, he said that for this, the government has replaced old electrical wiring on a large scale. Besides this, new condensers have been installed on old transformers to reduce line losses.

He said that new sub-stations and old stations have been increased for uninterrupted power supply to consumers. Apart from this, segregation of feeders has been done to reduce the load.

Khattar also said that unprecedented power reforms have been carried out in Haryana in the past eight years, which, he claimed, had garnered appreciation from Union Power Minister, Raj Kumar Singh besides even being studied by a Central government team.

The CM said, “As a result of this, the focus has been on reducing the line losses, which have come down to 13.43 per cent, which used to be 25 to 30 per cent in the previous governments. The state government has made elaborate arrangements to ensure regular power supply to the consumers.”

Haryana power minister Ranjit Singh Chautala, too, had earlier told The Indian Express that the aggregate technical and commercial losses — which provide a real situation of energy and revenue losses — have come down mainly because of checks on electricity theft and recovery of power bills.

In 2022, a report of the Union Ministry of Power — Tenth Annual Integrated Rating and Ranking of Power Distribution Utilities — had pegged Haryana at number two among Indian states, second only after Gujarat. The ranking was based on an exercise that covers 41 state distribution utilities spread across 22 states.