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| - Fact Check: No, Modi govt is not introducing 'one nation, one power tariff' law
A message circulating on social media claims that India may be heading towards a uniform power tariff policy. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading.
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India Today Fact Check
The Union government is not implementing any Act that would ensure uniform power tariff across the country. The “one nation, one grid” project has no relation to uniform power tariff.
Is India headed towards a uniform power tariff policy? That is what a message circulating on social media claims. The message in Bengali translates to, "Power tariffs will be uniform throughout the country as the Modi government is introducing 'one nation, one tariff' law."
The message was posted by Facebook page "B.J.P West Bengal". This is not the official Facebook page of the Bengal BJP unit.
Posted by B.J.P West Bengal on Monday, 11 January 2021
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. The Union government is not implementing any "one nation, one power tariff' law.
The archived version of the post can be seen here.
AFWA investigation
With the help of keyword search, we found several media reports, on BJP Rajya Sabha MP Shwait Malik proposing uniform electricity charges throughout India during Zero Hour of the Upper House on July 15, 2019.
However, there are no reports on whether the government has accepted the proposal or if it is mulling such an Act. In fact, the following day, "The Indian Express" published an article on why such a proposal is not viable.
AFWA reached out to Anirban Guha, the former director of West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Corporation Limited, who claimed that such an Act won't be commercially viable.
"In 1993, the Indian government had decided to do away with the Freight Equalisation Policy for the sake of commercialisation. Power sector is also highly commercialised, and so, no Indian government had ever thought of implementing a uniform power tariff for all states across the country. There is no information that the NDA government is implementing such an Act," Guha said.
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her 2019 Budget speech, had announced the "one nation, one grid" project.
In September 2020, Union power secretary Nandan Sahai had claimed that India has already attained the "one nation, one grid and one frequency" status.
However, the project is in no way connected with power tariff. It would integrate India's five regional grids and is aimed at exchanging operational surpluses among the regions. "This project has no relation to uniform power tariff," Guha said.
(Inputs by Arpit Basu in New Delhi)
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