Higher tariffs for households; Montek Singh

New Delhi, Oct 4 (UNI) With the country facing acute energy crisis, the Planning Commission today suggested higher tariffs for household use of electricity which would be at par with commercial establishments.

Speaking at a work shop on Energy Efficiency, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said some amount of power can be given free to the households. but anything above that can be charged at par with the commercial establishments.

The Power Ministry should evolve ways of rationalising on the energy pricing front, he said. Due to huge losses to the power distributor, largescale metering is being introduced.

There is a significant difference between the electricity charges for households as compared to commercial establishments, which has resulted in such discrepancies, he said.

''You can easily take care of this problem by unifying the rates,'' the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman said.

Mr Ahluwalia said as India continues to grow, the demand for energy is going to increase manifolds in the next few year putting a lot of pressure on the power generation companies.

He said the shopping malls that are mushrroming in the country are going to put a lot of pressure on the available amount of electricity.

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