Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said that people consuming up to 200 units of electricity do not have to pay electricity bills.
"In Delhi, people who consume up to 200 units (of electricity), do not have to pay their electricity bills. Their electricity bills (will be) waived," Mr. Kejriwal said addressing a press conference. "But if you use 201 units then you will have to pay the full bill."
The Chief Minister said that about 35% of the total consumers use less than 200 units during summer and the during winter it increases to 70%. Mr. Kejriwal also said that people using 201-400 units of electricity will get about 50% subsidy.
"Now people using 210 or 300 units will think that if they use under 200 units then their bills will be zero. We believe that this will encourage people to save electricity," Mr. Kejriwal said.
"There is no corruption today and the money we are saving is being given to people," he added.
Answering a question by The Hindu on why the move comes just six months before the Assembly election which is due in February 2020, Mr. Kejriwal said, "when we took over, the entire power sector was in a bad state. Since then, DERC has been reducing rates. It was a journey and not possible earlier, as power companies' financial state was bad. [Earlier] companies didn't have money to even buy electricity and we had stared at blackouts."
