New Delhi. The Central Government is also going to bring a new Electricity Amendment Bill in the winter session of Parliament starting from November 29. The draft of the Electricity Amendment Bill has almost been finalized. According to this bill, no subsidy will be given by the government to the power companies, but the government will directly transfer the subsidy to the bank account of the customers. This will be exactly the same as in the LPG subsidy.
Through this bill, it will be proposed to de-license the power distribution. The advantage of this would be that the private players of electricity distribution would be able to compete with the government distribution companies. Apart from this, electricity consumers will be able to choose from which of the power distribution companies they want to get electricity. Regarding this, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in the last Union Budget that the government is working on bringing such a framework. Let us inform that Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have already objected to these amendments.
This may affect consumers
It is believed that this decision of the government will have an impact on the electricity consumers. Till now Raju governments give subsidy in advance to the companies providing electricity. Electricity rates are decided on the basis of this subsidy. Because now the power companies will not get subsidy, otherwise it will directly fall on the customer. There is a possibility of increase in the bills of electricity consumers. Although the bill also states that direct money will be transferred to the accounts of customers, but it is not yet clear which customers will get the subsidy and which will not.
With the new law, electricity companies will be allowed to charge bills from the consumers on the basis of the cost. According to one figure, at present the cost of power generation companies is Rs 0.47 more per unit than the bill charged from the customers, which is compensated by the subsidy by the companies. So now this additional burden is going to fall on the people, because till now how and who will get the subsidy, it is not clear.
Why is the government bringing this bill
At present, many power distribution companies are running in loss. Discoms owe 95 thousand crores to companies. There is delay in getting subsidy to discoms, due to which distribution companies are in trouble. In such a situation, the government is doing this bill to lift the companies out of this crisis.
Many screws in the new bill
There are a lot of screws in the new bill, such as who will get the subsidy for the electricity bill? For example, if the electricity bill comes in the name of the landlord, owner of the land or shop, then they can get the subsidy, but what will happen to the subsidy in the case of the tenant? Apart from this, a big thing is also that in many villages of the country electricity is being provided without meter, how will the government recover from them?
