Assembly session : BJP says will react to statement after discussion After several rounds of hectic parleys between the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on what was perceived as the biggest threat to the alliance after power tariffs were hiked in September last year,the BJP discovered on Friday that no decision on the rollback of power tariff hike has been taken by the Punjab government yet. This was admitted on the floor of the House by none other than Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in his reply to an MLAs query. No instructions regarding rollback have been issued as yet. The refund of the amount received from various categories of consumers shall be made according to the decision on rollback, the reply read. The bouncer that has disrupted the peace between the alliance partners came from Congress MLA from Kharar Balbir Singh Sidhu who had demanded details on the amount realised by the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) from the hiked tariff rates and the procedure of refunding it to the consumers. In July last year,Sidhu had come to the Assembly wearing a black robe,to lodge protest against long power cuts. Since this was an unstarred question,to which just a written reply is given,the government could escape embarrassment on the issue from the Opposition Congress and its ally,the BJP. State BJP president Ashwani Sharma later told The Indian Express that the party would react only after reading the CMs statement. Our minister Manoranjan Kalia was present in the house. Only after talking to Kalia and other party leaders will the party react to the statement, he said. The CMs reply says an additional Rs 1,300.08 crore is expected from consumers due to the increase in tariffs during the year 2009-10. An amount of Rs 584.3 crore has been received from all categories except agricultural power,which is to be paid by the government. According to the details tabled in the house,the highest amount of Rs 224 crore has been released from large supply consumers from the hike between April 2009 and December 2009,followed by Rs 248 crore from domestic and non-residential supply category. Though all categories are paying hiked tariffs,the government is yet to pay the hiked amount of monthly subsidy to the power board. The monthly instalment of subsidy went up from Rs 216 crore to Rs 294 crore after tariffs were hiked by the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission for 2009-10 in September. But the government is still paying the old monthly bill of Rs 216 crore to the board and has defaulted in the payment of the entire subsidy dues for the last three consecutive months of this year.
