Chandigarh, November 2
Declaring the announcement made by the Punjab government shortly before the election to provide Rs 3 per unit cheaper electricity to the people of the state as a betrayal, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab senior leader and MLA Aman Arora said, “The Channi government has given a pill of celphos to the people of Punjab in the name of Diwali gift as it has neither reduced the fixed charges nor taken any action against the power mafia. It has also slashed the general price of reduced electricity.”
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here on Tuesday, Aman Arora said that being an opposition party, he not only opposes the decisions of the government but also supports the right decisions; if the decisions are not deceiving. Arora revealed, “The announcement by the Channi government to reduce the unit price of electricity to Rs 3 is a lie. The government has reduced only Rs 2 per 100 units and after 100 units this benefit will be further reduced to Rs 1 only.”
Aman Arora alleged that the Channi government had ostensibly announced a reduction in power prices during the elections, while the fixed charge was still in force; did not reduce the cost of power supply and did not take any action against the power mafia. Issues have become a means of plundering the people. The issue of Punjab’s backyard coal mine (Chhattisgarh) for cheap coal has not been resolved, he said.
The AAP leader said that the Congress government was increasing the subsidy on electricity but was not closing the loopholes. Due to this the burden of subsidies on PSPCL is increasing. The Punjab government has not even paid the subsidy money to PSPCL, due to which the debt burden on PSPCL is also increasing and this debt has increased to Rs 34,000 crore. Arora said the Congress government was supposed to provide cheap electricity to the people of Punjab in the last 15 years but instead increased the price of electricity by 35 percent.
Now in the last days, the government has pretended to provide cheap electricity and has started filling up electricity waiver forms in the villages to mislead the people, said Arora. He appealed to the people of Punjab to fill up the Congress forms thoughtfully and truthfully as the Congress party had also filled up the forms from the people in 2017; saying that we would forgive the debts of all the farmers and laborers, provide jobs from door to door and will give smart phones to students; but for over four-and-a-half-years; the Congress government has given nothing to the people of Punjab except inflation and false pretenses.
Aman Arora said that on behalf of the Aam Aadmi Party, he (Aman Arora) had introduced a private member’s bill five times in the Assembly to cancel the fatal power purchase agreements; but the Congress government had not taken any action. He said that if the Congress government had complied with the AAP’s demands of the white paper issued on the matter related to power, the people of Punjab would have got a benefit of around Rs 700 crore. But the Congress government in its last 40 days is trying to mislead the people of Punjab by bringing a resolution in the Assembly to cancel the power deals so that the votes can be looted in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
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