Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru

Mangaluru, Aug 4: District Congress president K Harish Kumar and former MLA J R Lobo have alleged that the burden of paying pension and gratuity to over 39,000 employees of the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) has been unfairly shifted onto electricity consumers by the previous BJP government. They said that it is the 2022 BJP government order which the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) has now implemented, resulting in the hike in domestic power bills.

The Congress leaders made these remarks during a joint press meet in response to the BJP’s protest against the electricity tariff hike.

Speaking at the press meet, J R Lobo explained that a separate trust has been established to provide pension and gratuity to the eligible 39,000 KPTCL employees. Until 2021, the state government used to deposit the pension and gratuity amount to this trust, with a total contribution of Rs 12,700 crore. However, on November 15 and November 22, 2022, the then BJP government issued official orders stating that the government would no longer bear this expense and that the money should be recovered from power consumers. It also directed that arrears of KPTCL employees for the years 2022 and 2023 be collected from consumers.

Lobo added that electricity consumers had challenged this order in the High Court, which upheld the government’s direction and ruled that the collection should continue. Following this, KERC issued an order increasing the tariff by 36 paise per unit.

“All this is recorded in official government documents. Yet, BJP leaders are now falsely blaming the Congress government for the tariff hike,” Lobo said, questioning whom the BJP is actually protesting against.

Harish Kumar pointed out that the burden on consumers is entirely due to the BJP government’s decision, and that many of the present BJP legislators were also MLAs at the time. “Why did they not oppose the decision when the order was issued?” he asked.

Congress leaders Padmaraj R, Shashidhar Hegde, Shahul Hameed, Prakash Salyan, Shubhodaya Alva, T K Sudhir, Jayashila Adyantaya, Premanath, Yogesh Kumar, Nelson, and others were present at the press meet.