Chandigarh, January 16
Compulsions of an election year weighed heavy on Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as he today announced a major relief to the state’s domestic and agriculture power consumers despite the distribution companies already being in the red.

While the tariff has been slashed from 25 p to 10 paise per unit in the agriculture sector, the government decided to stick to the tariff plan of April 2013 for the domestic consumers and decided to roll back the increase made after this cut-off date for those consuming up to 500 units a month.

The move comes in the wake of a demand by the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) to slash the tariff dove-tailed with the threat of non-payment of bills if its demand was not considered favourably and growing protests against “inflated” bills in the state.

Also, clamour for tariff reduction had been growing since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had announced a power subsidy in the neighbouring Delhi.

Hooda said a decision to lower the tariff had been taken in keeping with the demand raised from many quarters. “The total subsidy works out to about Rs 600 crores which the government will bear. The rates for agriculture are the lowest in Haryana,” he said.

Punjab levies no charges for power from the agriculture sector.

Maintaining that the new rates would be applicable from January, Hooda said the decision would benefit 38 lakh domestic consumers which form nearly 95 per cent of the total consumers.