Punjab Irrigation and Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh on Tuesday ruled out a hike in power tariff in the state, rejecting media reports to the contrary as misleading.In a statement issued here, the minister said there was no question of going back on the Congress poll promise of providing affordable power in the state, and added that his comments to the media in this regard had been misconstrued and taken out of context.The minister pointed out that his remarks referring to the power regulator were made in the light of the Commission’s recommendations on power pricing but he had, at no point in time, suggested a hike in the cost of power in the state in violation of his party’s election promise. “The job of the power regulator is to make its recommendations based on its own understanding of the sectoral requirements but the government will take any decision based the promises made in the poll manifesto and keeping in view the interest of the people,” he added.In fact, said the minister, he had clearly stated, during his media interaction on Monday, that “we will take steps to provide power at affordable rates to domestic as well as commercial consumers, as promised in the Congress manifesto.”
The manifesto clearly states that the Congress government will ensure 24X7 power supply at affordable tariff to all sectors of the state’s economy, including domestic consumers, trade, business and industry. Electricity tariff for industry will be frozen for five years, it further states, the minister pointed out, asserting that the poll promises in the manifesto were sacrosanct and would not be violated at any cost.The government is currently considering the industry’s demand for power at Rs. 5 per unit, the minister pointed out, adding that “we are committed to providing affordable power to the industry and other sections of the state, besides continuing with free power to farmers.”A section of the media has unfortunately taken a part of my statement out of context to give it a misleading complexion, said the minister.