Delhi empowered! Power subsidy and no new taxes bring relief

A day after a hike of 8.32 per cent, the government has provided a relief to Delhiites with announcement of subsidies worth Rs 260 crore on power tariff. For the consumers of 0-201 units slab, the government has granted a subsidy of Rs 1.20 and for 201-400 units slab, the subsidy will be 80 paisa.

Preparing for dominance in Delhi politics, the BJP-led government at the Centre presented a no-new-taxes budget with an outlay of Rs 36,766 crore, focusing on social inclusion and development of infrastructure. 

After the announcement of subsidies, which will be applicable from Friday midnight, the tariff for 0-201 units will be Rs 2.80 against Rs 4 earlier and for 201-400 units slab the tariff will be Rs 5.15 against Rs 5.95 earlier.

After six years of its commissioning, the government has finally announced to make the 1,500 MW Bawana Gas Turbine power plant, which was constructed at a cost of Rs 4,500 crore.

‘The 1500 MW Gas Turbine Station commissioned at Bawana is yet to be made functional to its full capacity and efforts will be made to sort out the issue of adequate gas supply at reasonable cost to make this plant fully functional,’ Union finance minister Arun Jaitely said in his speech in Parliament on Friday.

The Budget also has the provisions of strengthening the weakened power supply lines of Delhi. Jaitley has already allocated Rs 200 for it. To improve the transmission and distribution network, Delhi Transco Limited (DTL) is going to commission a new 400 KV sub-station at Harsh Vihar and 220 KV GIS (Gas Insulated Switch gear) sub-station at Peera Garhi,’ he said.

‘It has also proposed to take up the construction of three new 220 KV GIS sub-stations at Papankalan, Tughlakabad and Rajghat Power House in the current financial year,’ he added.