Other States - Madhya Pradesh   

Chauhan's sop for special category power users

Staff Correspondent

Beneficiaries include single-point consumers of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities

BHOPAL: At the first meeting of the Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan here on Tuesday, the steps taken to implement the earlier decision to waive the electricity dues for single-point bulb connections and irrigation pumps up to five-horse power from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2003, were ratified. As part of the initiative to meet this objective, an amount of Rs. 1782.55 crores has been adjusted and paid to the State Electricity Board by the State Government.

This was announced at a Press briefing by the State Minister for Public Relations, Panchayat, Rural Development and Gramodyog, Narendra Singh Tomar. He told newspersons that the State Government would offset the liability of waiving electricity dues of some special categories of beneficiaries from January 1, 2004 onwards by paying the linked dues to the Electricity Board.

The special category beneficiaries would include single-point consumers belonging to the SC/ST communities who use less than 25 units of electricity per month and the SC/ST farmers, who own less than one hectare of land and use irrigation pumps up to five horse-power.

Mr. Tomar told journalists that the Cabinet has also decided to lower the captive power plant cess from 20 paise per unit to 10 paise per unit. At present this benefit is available only for new captive power plants.

He said the Cabinet has decided to raise the Chief Minister's relief fund's existing limit from Rs 2 crores to Rs. 9 crores.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Chauhan's sop for special category power users
Gaur gets Commerce, Industry

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu