{"id":141060,"date":"2021-10-13T20:16:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T14:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=141060"},"modified":"2021-10-20T14:15:45","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T08:45:45","slug":"free-power-at-a-big-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/free-power-at-a-big-price\/","title":{"rendered":"Free power at a big price"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>The promise of free power to households\/ other activities cannot be sustained.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>With elections coming near in many states, political parties started offering a lot of freebies to the people. Promises such as free power up to 300 units \/month for households, free households, free households etc have been made. These all have adverse impacts in the long term.<\/p>\n<p>Some states provide subsidized electricity as low as less than \u20b91\/unit while others like Punjab, Karnataka offer free electricity. Although it ensures various benefits like promoting rural livelihood but providing free electricity has its adverse impacts.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What are the problems associated with free power?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><strong>Agriculture: <\/strong>\u00a0Nearly \u00be of agricultural connections are unmetered in India. Their <strong>consumption estimates are often inflated<\/strong> by distribution companies to increase <strong>subsidy demand<\/strong> and project low distribution losses. Also, the inefficient use of electricity and water, neglect of service quality by DISCOMS led to frequent outrages, motor burnouts and a high subsidy burden on state governments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Small Consumers: <\/strong>Although subsidized low tariff for small consumers is necessary because of the pandemic situation and economic slowdown. It is to be noted that these consumers require only 50-100 units\/month to meet their basic requirements. But states like Delhi and Punjab offer 200\/units of free electricity, which is not required.<\/p>\n<p>Further, it will also <strong>discourage people to opt for environment-friendly options<\/strong> like rooftop solar etc<\/p>\n<p><strong>What methods can government\/discoms adopt?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Providing free electricity is <strong>only short-term relief<\/strong>. It should be restricted to those only who are in dire need of it. Government should look for long-term measures on how to provide better services to people.<\/p>\n<p>It can provide a rebate of up to 200\/month for residential customers in the electricity bill. This will make a significant impact on small consumers.<\/p>\n<p>Similar rebates can be offered to home-based enterprises. Additional rebates can also be offered to those who used energy-efficient enterprises like TV, Fridge etc.<\/p>\n<p>Initiatives should be taken to <strong>solve the mistrust between consumers and distribution companies<\/strong>. There should be a quick resolution of queries\/complaints.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> This post is based on the article \u201c<strong>Free power at a big price\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Hindu <\/strong>on <strong>13<sup>th<\/sup> October 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: The promise of free power to households\/ other activities cannot be sustained. Introduction With elections coming near in many states, political parties started offering a lot of freebies to the people. Promises such as free power up to 300 units \/month for households, free households, free households etc have been made. These all have&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/free-power-at-a-big-price\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Free power at a big price<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5480,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[8671,4449,10299,4450],"class_list":["post-141060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-changes-in-industrial-policy","tag-discoms","tag-free-electricity","tag-power-sector","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1703670146},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}