Most people, including some political leaders from opposition parties have rightly voiced their strong objections towards the proposed power tariff hike during a Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission's (JERC) hearing and which was held in Panaji on Monday. Well, it should be noted that the Electricity Department, despite giving lousy service to all its consumers in the state has now proposed a six per cent tariff hike for domestic consumers in the first two slabs of 0 to 100 and 101 to 200 units power consumption category, while an overall hike of 3.48 per cent has been proposed. Officials of the Electricity department must be dreaming that most people are earning hefty salaries and enjoying their 'ache-din' in Goa. The Electricity department should first focus on recovering the arrears from those not paying their bills on time, carry a crackdown against those involved in power theft in the tourism industry, commercial establishments, factories etc and then hike the power tariff rates of domestic consumers in the state but should not unnecessarily penalise them despite paying their bills on time in Goa.
