Electricity Amendment Bill 2021 – In the coming elections, do not be surprised if your leaders do not appear to waive the electricity bill or make promises related to cheap electricity, because the reason for this is hidden in the root of the Electricity Amendment Bill, which is going to bring the government in this winter session. After the implementation of this law, governments will no longer be able to subsidize power companies. Now this subsidy will be put directly in the account of the consumers. Let us now know about it.
This simply means that you have to pay the full electricity bill. After this, the government will put subsidy money in your account. You must be thinking that we pay the bill completely, then what is the subsidy?
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In fact, it happens that the electricity companies are spending more than the bill that is taken from the customers. That is, the power companies give you cheap electricity even after suffering losses. But this loss is compensated by government subsidy.
Three important things of Electricity Amendment Bill 2021
(1) State governments give subsidy to power distribution companies. After this the companies fix the electricity rates. Now what will happen if the government stops this subsidy? It will be that there will be an impact on electricity prices.
(2) The companies that supply electricity to your house claim that they are in huge losses. According to a report by PIB, discoms are estimated to have a total loss of Rs 90,000 crore in the financial year 2020-21.
(3) The subsidy is delayed by the government. So it also affects the power distribution companies. Now if the new system is implemented, then companies can increase the price. However, its full effect will be on your pocket. The government will compensate it by giving subsidy directly in your account. Farmers are strongly opposing this bill of the government. Farmers organizations believe that this will have a great impact on them. Now it has to be seen whether the government will be able to pass this bill in this session or this bill will get lost due to the ongoing uproar in Parliament.
(4) There are some challenges with the new law. The connection is in the name of the landlord, owner of the land, shop. It is not clear who will get the subsidy in case of tenant. The subsidy will be fixed according to the consumption of electricity. Therefore 100% metering is necessary. In many states electricity is being provided without meter. There are 15 lakh agricultural consumers in Maharashtra who are getting electricity without meter. These are 37% of the total agricultural consumers. Consumers will be upset if there is a delay in subsidy transfer. According to ‘PRS Legislative Research’, the average monthly bill of an agricultural consumer can be up to Rs 5 thousand. For those who are getting free electricity now, this amount will be very heavy.