Lucknow: Here comes a big news for electricity consumers in Uttar Pradesh. The Yogi Adityanath government on Thursday ordered that electricity bills should not be increased in the state for the fifth consecutive year. As per the government order, the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) kept the electricity tariff unchanged for all consumer categories for the fifth consecutive year in its tariff order for FY 2024-25.
Moreover, the commission decided to maintain tariff stability addressing concerns over inflationary pressures on households and businesses. UPERC chairman Arvind Kumar said there is no increase in tariff payable by any consumer category.
He further added that the state government recently took a policy decision for giving benefit of HV-2 industrial category rates to certain categories of IT/ITeS industries.
In a similar manner, the Yogi governemnt in March this year had announced a big gift for farmers of Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Holi festival. In a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday, it was decided to waive electricity bills of farmers with private tube wells with retrospective effect from April 1, 2023.
The decision was beneficial to around 1.5 crore farmers of the state. The government has provided Rs 1800 crore in the 2024-2025 budget for implementation of the scheme.
Furthermore, the government has put forth a proposal for a scheme aimed at assisting farmers with outstanding electricity bills predating April 1, 2023, in bill settlement without accruing interest and offering them convenient installment options.
Informing about the decision following the Cabinet meeting at Lok Bhawan, Energy Minister AK Sharma said that with this announcement the government has kept its promise of providing 100 per cent exemption from power tariff to the farmers owning private tube wells in the state.
According to Sharma, on average 8 to 10 farmers benefit from one tube well in terms of irrigation of their fields and thus, the total number of beneficiaries of the scheme will reach about 1.5 crore in Uttar Pradesh. "If we consider an average family size of 5 members per farmer, approximately 6-7 crore individuals stand to benefit from this scheme. For outstanding dues predating this date, we are devising an interest-free scheme, which will be rolled out soon."
