Bengaluru: Energy Minister Sunil Kumar slammed the Congress on Friday January 13 for promising to give 200 free electricity units per month to every household in the State if elected to power. He claimed that Congress wants to privatise electricity supply (ESCOMs) firms through this.
According to a statement from Sunil Kumar’s office, the allegation that Opposition Party Leader Siddaramaiah pushed ESCOMs toward bankruptcy and that ESCOMs had a debt of Rs. 9,000 Crore when he served as Chief Minister was a lie.
He further said that when Congress was in power, it failed to provide power to farmer pump sets.
Kumar said that the same party is promising free power now. “The Government has given all of the ESCOMs Rs. 18,000 Crore since Basavaraj Bommai became the Chief Minister,” he said.
In a series of tweets, Siddaramaiah claimed that the B. S. Yediyurappa Government had put ESCOMs to loss before 2013. “The Congress-led government saved ESCOMs. We made investments instead of spending unnecessarily. From 2013 to 2018, our government tried to increase power production. We will work toward that and provide people 200 units of free power,” he added.
