Congress workers staged a demonstration in the city on Thursday to protest against the power tariff hike approved by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC).
The hike in tariff was sought by the electricity supply companies (ESCOMS) citing increase in expenditure and cost of power procurement consequent to which the hike was approved after a series of public hearings.
The Congress said the hike of 40 paise per unit across all categories would hit the commoners who are already reeling due to the pandemic-induced economic crisis, job loss, pay cut etc. The farmers were in dire straits and the traders and commercial establishments are down in the dumps due to the lockdown and contraction of the economy. Such being the case the approval for power tariff hike betrayed insensitivity to the crisis being faced by the people, said the agitating Congress workers.
The District Congress Committee President B.J. Vijaykumar said the move was anti-people and amounted to inflicting further hardship on the people of the State and wanted the hike to be rescinded with immediate effect.
He said when the Congress was in power it introduced a series of pro-people programmes and flayed the present BJP government for remaining ‘insensitive’ to the predicament of the people. The protest, held in front of the Congress bBavan, saw the party workers raising slogans against the government.