The Communist Party of India (CPI) has requested the State government either to provide special subsidy to domestic category consumers of power or to collect the bill amounts equal to those issued during April, May and June last year in the wake of coronavirus pandemic impact on the earnings of poor and middle-class households.
State secretary of CPI Chada Venkat Reddy said in a statement that the domestic consumers had received huge bills this month after collection of energy consumption data for the last three months at a time, resulting in slab change and steep increase in the amount payable. In the absence of income during the lockdown period, the power bills had become a huge burden for the downtrodden, poor and middle-class families.
Similarly, the commercial establishments too had received huge bills due to slab change although they could run their activities barely for a month in March, April and May. He suggested the government to facilitate the below poverty line families to pay bills in category one and two or implement the telescoping billing system for the last three months consumption against the non-telescopic system in which the bills were being generated now. He also urged the government to waive the late fee on bill payments due to the pandemic conditions.
Cong. MP’s letter
Meanwhile, Congress MP from Bhongir Komatireddy Venkat Reddy has requested Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao not to burden the poor and middle-class people with huge power bills when most of them had no source of income for the last three months due to the COVID-19 lockdown. In a letter addressed to the Chief Minister on Monday he felt that huge power bills would compound the troubles of those sections.
The MP suggested changes in the computation of bills for the lockdown period so that there is some relief to majority of consumers. He stated that the Congress party would agitate on behalf of people in case the government failed to provide any relief to people in the matter of huge power bills.
