Left parties oppose steep hike of power tariff

CHENNAI: Left parties have urged the state government to reconsider the steep electricity charges hike which will be an additional burden for the consumers.

In a statement, CPI state secretary R Mutharasan said that the electricity charges have been hiked in the range of 32 to 53 per cent to help TANGEDCO earn a revenue of Rs 59,000 crore.

“It is totally unacceptable to justify the steep hike in the power tariff citing various reasons including electricity charges are less compared to other states, the tariff was not hiked for the last eight years and union government insisting to increase the tariff. There was no clear response to the question of why lack of transparency on the loss caused due to power purchase from private generators, ” he said.

He also strongly opposed the automatic power tariff hike for the next five years and the steep hike has created a lot of anger against the government. He urged the government to reduce the tariff hike and scrap the automatic hike of 6 per cent every year.

CPM state secretary K Balakrishnan urged the government to withdraw the hike and mentioned that there was no precedent for the annual price hike in the state and this would worsen the life of poor and middle-class families as well as small and medium-scale industries.