Himachal Passes Bill for Milk, Environment Cess on Power Bills

Shimla, Sep 10 (PTI) Himachal Pradesh Assembly on Tuesday passed an amendment bill to pave way for the levy of a milk cess and an environment cess on consumption of electricity.

The Himachal Pradesh Electricity (Duty) Amendment Bill 2024, which seeks to amend the Himachal Pradesh Electricity (Duty) Act, 2009, with insertion of Sections 3-A for levy of milk cess and 3-B for environment cess, was passed by voice vote.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had introduced the bill on Monday.

The milk cess is aimed at strengthening milk producers and upliftment of farmers while the environment cess will be levied for a clean environment to boost the tourism industry.

The milk cess would be 10 paise per unit for all consumers barring the zero billing consumers.

The environment cess would be 2 paise per unit for small industrial power consumption, 4 paise for medium industrial power consumption, 10 paise per unit for large industrial power consumption and commercial consumers, Rs 2 per unit for temporary connections and stone crushers and Rs 6 per unit on charging station.

Further, the bill empowers the government to enhance both the cess through notification subject to a maximum of 50 per cent at one time.

Justifying the levy of milk and environment cess, the chief minister said the government had earned revenue of Rs 130 crore by levying milk cess on liquor (Rs 10 per bottle) and the government was working on Vyavastha Parivartan (Change in system) by rationalizing freebies and generating revenue without putting burden on the common man.

He said that milk cess has been proposed to strengthen the economy of milk producers while the levy of environment cess is aimed at keeping the environment clean to boost tourism.

The state purchases power at the rate of Rs 7 per unit from other states from October to March and the cess was required to improve the financial health of the state.

Sukhu said that people of Himachal are rich but the government is poor and the government is taking measures to improve the financial condition and claimed that in spite of levy of cess, power is cheaper in Himachal as compared to neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Opposing the amendment bill, the leader of Opposition, Jai Ram Thakur said the government has been putting burden on the people from day one and hiked the price of diesel by Rs 7 per litre, stopped 125 units of free power, increased the charges of tap water from Rs 10 to Rs 100 in rural area and backed out from promise to give 300 units of free power to consumers.

"We are a power surplus state with not so good connectivity and assured power supply is the biggest attraction but in spite of this, electricity is cheaper in Uttarakhand," Thakur said and asked why people (investors) should come to Himachal.

This move would prove to be counter-productive, he added.