Tangmarg, Aug 25: Assuring that Jammu and Kashmir won\u2019t see any further power tariff hike during his tenure, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said that the latest revision was imposed out of compulsion and not by choice.<\/p>\n
Addressing a gathering here in North Kashmir, CM Omar, as per the news agency\u2014Kashmir News Observer (KNO) defended the tariff revision and hit back at opposition parties, saying previous dispensations had significantly hiked electricity rates during their rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI acknowledge the increase in electricity tariffs, but we did not do it out of happiness. It was a compulsion,\u201d CM Omar said, adding that his government had tried to keep the additional burden on consumers to a minimum.<\/p>\n
Comparing the latest revision with previous tariff hikes, the Chief Minister said, \u201cWhen these people were in power, they increased the tariff by 13-15 per cent four years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referring specifically to the PDP-BJP coalition\u00a0 government, CM Omar said, \u201cWhen Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba was the Chief Minister, the electricity rates were increased by 13.5 to 14 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questioning the criticism of the latest hike, the Chief Minister asked why similar objections were not raised when previous regimes increased the rates. \u201cWhy did you remain silent at that time? At that time, didn’t you feel that injustice was being done to the people?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
CM Omar assured consumers that his government would not increase electricity tariffs further.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assure you, my complete effort will be that, God willing, during this government, after this, we will not increase the electricity rates any further. No more than this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Chief Minister said the government would now focus on improving basic services and infrastructure, including drinking water, schools, healthcare, roads and horticulture infrastructure.<\/p>\n
He also reiterated that his government would fulfil the commitments made to the people during the remaining three-and-a-half years of its term. (KNO)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tangmarg, Aug 25: Assuring that Jammu and Kashmir won\u2019t see any further power tariff hike during his tenure, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said that the latest revision was imposed out of compulsion and not by choice. Addressing a gathering here in North Kashmir, CM Omar, as per the news agency\u2014Kashmir News Observer (KNO) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news","category-kt-front"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29002,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29000\/revisions\/29002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}