नवीनतम
Bihar Polls: Nitish announces 125 units of free electricity
NEW DELHI [Maha Media]: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced 125 units of free electricity every month for the people of Bihar on Thursday. The move targeting 1.67 crore families in the state comes in the run-up to the Assembly elections expected to be held in November.
We have been providing electricity to everyone at affordable rates from the very beginning. Now we have decided that from August 1, 2025, that is, from the July bill itself, all domestic consumers in the state will not have to pay any money for electricity up to 125 units. This will benefit a total of 1 crore 67 lakh families in the state," Nitish wrote in a post on X.
Writing further, the Chief Minister asserted that the state government has also decided to take the consent of all the domestic consumers and install solar energy equipment on their rooftops in the next three years or establish solar power plants at nearby public places and provide electricity to them.
“The state government will bear the entire cost of installing solar power equipment for the extremely poor families under the Kutir Jyoti Yojana, and will provide adequate assistance to other families,” Nitish added to quell any apprehensions about the expenditure that would be incurred under the free electricity scheme.
He asserted that the scheme would not only provide 125 units of free electricity to the domestic consumers, but would also make available around 10,000 MW of solar energy in the state in the next three years.
Incidentally, the state government had come out with a statement earlier this week to deny any plans to provide free power as talks about such a move in the offing swirled in various political and social circles.
The Bihar Chief Minister, who is also the national president of the Janata Dal United (JDU), has always been opposed to freebies, especially those announced around the elections. In numerous speeches in the past, he had protested the trend and had talked about practising economic wisdom.
However, officials close to him said that he has not discarded his stand, and the solar power condition in the ‘free electricity’ announcement was evidence.
With the Assembly elections around the corner, the free electricity scheme announced could turn out to be a game-changer as energy bills are a significant financial burden for a majority of the people in Bihar. The state has one of the highest electricity rates in the country, ranging from Rs 7.42 to Rs 8.95 per unit for domestic consumers.
Nitish's move will benefit every section of the society that has been complaining about high power tariffs, and has the potential of boosting public support for the NDA government led by him in the state.
