Jaipur, Jul 22 (PTI) Rajasthan Assembly on Monday witnessed uproar as the Opposition Congress MLAs raised the issue of power cuts and fuel surcharge levied on electricity bills.
While Congress MLAs raised slogans, Minister of State for Power Heeralal Nagar said that power cuts are happening due to the mismanagement of the previous Congress government.
During the Question Hour and Zero Hour, Congress MLAs Indra Meena, Manish Yadav and Amit Chachan raised this issue. Expressing dissatisfaction over the minister’s reply during the Question Hour, Leader of Opposition Tikaram Jully said that the answer given to the House is an attempt to mislead the House.
He said, “the minister is saying that power plants are being run at a relatively higher capacity, so why is there no electricity?” After this, Congress MLAs started raising slogans.
During Zero Hour, Amit Chachan raised the issue of a ‘fuel surcharge’ levied on electricity bills and power cuts. Congress MLAs also raised slogans over this and demanded fuel surcharge withdrawal. Jully requested Speaker Vasudev Devnani to direct the government in this regard. Congress MLA Manish Yadav also raised the issue of undeclared power cuts.
Minister of State for Power (Independent Charge) Heeralal Nagar alleged during the Question Hour that due to the ‘mismanagement’ of the previous government, the people in the state are forced to face power cuts. Despite this, the state government is constantly trying for an uninterrupted supply of electricity through other measures, including an increase in production in the state.
He said that due to extreme heat and heat waves this year, there has been an unexpected increase of 25 to 28 per cent in the demand for electricity as compared to last year. Despite efforts like ensuring the availability of coal to the thermal power plants of the state, increasing the plant load factor to 74 per cent, purchasing electricity from the Energy Exchange to meet the nighttime demand and allocating 150 MW of electricity from central power plants, load shedding of 2 to 3 hours has to be done at night to meet this increased demand.
He tabled the details of the steps being taken to resolve the power crisis in the state. PTI AG HIG HIG
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