the goan I network
MAPUSA
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday told the State Legislative Assembly that hike in power tariff was inevitable, if Goans wanted quality service and uninterrupted power supply.
“I am not saying we are going to increase the tariff today. But to get quality of service, we will have to increase tariff cost to some extent,” said Parrikar, who looks after the power department in absence of Power Minister Pandurang Madkaikar
The Chief Minister was responding to the demands for grants of electricity department in the House.
Parrikar said in his three month stay in US, he did not experience power failure even once, while the internet was down just once.
“When I crosschecked their tariff to ours, it worked out to almost Rs 9 to 10 per unit. Here, the cost is Rs 1.70 or Rs 2.10 per unit,” he said.
He further said that if the government decided to go for a hike in tariff even by 10 paise, there is immediately a big hue and cry.
He then said that the same people will never analyse raise in salaries.
Giving an example, Parrikar said in the last five years the salary of a government servant went up by 77 percent and that is without taking the seventh pay commission into consideration.
“So if salary has gone up by 77 percent, then a 10 per cent hike in power tariff is needed. That we are not doing and therefore power situation remains the same,” he tried to justify for the poor quality of power supply in the State.
The CM said the government was very concerned about the poor and suggested that units of power consumption could be used to identify the poor.
“A person who consumes 500 units of power cannot be called poor. A person consuming 100 to 150 units can be considered poor. Having an AC is a luxury. But if a poor person says he too needs an AC, then he should be able to pay the cost too,”
Parrikar said.
The chief minister admitted increase in power disruptions this year but chose to blame the weather for it.
“Due to unseasonal rain and storms in April-May, 1,000 conductors were snapped, 650 electricity poles were uprooted, 45 distributor transformer centres and three power transformers failed due to lightening,” he said.
He further said the large number of trees that fell on the power lines also damaged many conductors and other equipment.
The chief minister told the House that this year the department has received Rs 370 core budgetary support from the government by way of subsidies.
“These subsidies are by way of connections to common man, agriculture etc and it works out to almost 15 percent of the total power portfolio. Of the total budgetary provision for power of Rs 2,166 crore, Rs 370 crore is given by the government by way of
subsidy,” he said.
