Chandigarh, April 16 : Fulfilling its major promise made during run-up to the Vidhan Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday announced 300 ts of free electricity in Punjab from July 1. Addressing newly recruited officers/employees of Punjab State Transmission Corporation (PSTCL) at a function organized on the occasion of the foundation day of the PSTCL here Saturday , Mann said the Punjab government would provide 600 ts of free electricity to every household every two months. He said rates of Industrial and Commercial ts would also not be hiked besides continuing free electricity for the agriculture sector. The Chief Minister further announced to waive off bills upto 2 KW load till December 31, 2021. He said Punjab would be the second state after Delhi to provide free power to the people in the country. He said Punjab despite being the Power producing state was not still able to provide free/cheaper electricity to the people due to the wrong agreements done by the previous governments. “There are still some hiccups in providing cheaper and free electricity to the people such as transmission losses, coal issues and some legal issues which his government is working to sort out,” he added. Mann also said his government is committed to provide the cheapest electricity to the commercial and industrial sectors in the country which would also be fulfilled. Earlier Bhagwant Mann congratulating the newly recruits in the PSTCL on its founders day exhorted the youth to come forward to contribute for rebuilding the state. He also listed out major achievements of his one month such as Anti-Corruption Action line, Anti-gangster task force, 25000 new job announcements, delivery of ration to the houses, regularization of 35000 contractual employees, one MLA one pension etc. Mann said NRIs want to pay back due to their love for their motherland and his government has been able to build trust of NRIs in just one month. “The NRIs are approaching his government to contribute to the development of the state as they know that their money would be spent for the development purposes in the real sense,” he said. Earlier, welcoming the Chief Minister and newly recruited officers and employees, Power Minister Harbhajan Singh said transmission capacity of PSTCL would be enhanced to 39588 in 2022 as compared to 38160 in 2021. He said Panchwada coal mine which was closed from the year 2015, now the dewatering work has been started in this coal mine and Punjab is expected to get coal from this site in the present year. He added that to reduce the expenditure of coal for private thermal power plants an agreement has been made with Coal India to get coal from the nearby north India coal mines which includes 28 lakh ton for Rajpura Thermal Power plant and 10 lakh ton for Talwandi Thermal Power Plant. PSTCL today gave appointment letters to 718 candidates for the various posts. DB SY 1905
