CM urges employees to sit for talks and not to agitate on any of their demands
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Monday announced a slew of relief measures for the citizens and state government employees, in the near term of the Diwali festival. He said that for residential consumers in the state, the electricity rate for residential consumers with load connection up to 7 kW was being reduced by Rs 3 per unit in all slabs.
Also for state government employees, he announced a hike of 11 per cent in Dearness Allowance (DA) and urged them to sit for talks and not to agitate on any of their demands.
However, during these announcements, the Chief Minister refused to comment on the resignation of Advocate General APS Deol, but according to Hindustan Times, a CMO official confirmed that the resignation has been accepted and will take further action soon. will be announced.
About the latest cut in electricity rates, which is applicable from Monday, Channi said that electricity is now the cheapest in Punjab. He further informed that this will put an additional burden of Rs 3,316 crore on the state exchequer and will increase to Rs 14,000 crore on computing the total annual electricity subsidy bill, which includes subsidy on agricultural pumpsets.
“With today’s announcement, Punjab State Power Corporation Limited has covered 95 per cent of the consumers, touching 69 lakh consumers out of the total 72 lakh consumers,” Channi said in a press conference.
He further said that the government has decided to terminate its agreements with the GVK-owned power plant at Goindwal Sahib. “We will also work on power purchase agreements with two more privately owned thermal plants in Punjab by bringing a law in the upcoming session of the Assembly on November 8,” he said.
Speaking about the DA hike of government employees, Channi said, “On the occasion of Diwali, I wanted to give them a gift which they never had before. The employees were on strike even before I became the CM. Spoke to him this morning.”
CM Channi was quoted by ANI as saying, “We discussed the gift, they also gave me a commitment that as long as this government is in power, they will not go on strike, no matter what. They will sit and discuss the issue.” “
