New Delhi: A day later Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani declared a waiver on property tax and fixed charge in the electricity bill for a year, to give support to the hotels, resorts, restaurants, and water parks in the state, traders are asking related reservations in Delhi and Noida as they are staggering under COVID-19 restraints after the onset of the harsh second surge of the pandemic. Citing the Gujarat government’s movement, the Confederation of Traders Association of India’s Delhi and Noida chapters have directed related relief in a request to begin afresh from their governments. The Delhi government permitted the opening up of shops and other commercial institutions beginning June 7.
“In Delhi, traders are meeting a big financial crisis, and on the other hand to make the situation worse, the electricity providers have sent highly increased bills to commercial and industrial establishments for the period of lockdown when these businesses were closed and making the life of traders more miserable. Under the conditions, we urged you to look into the matter urgently and grant a financial package for the traders of Delhi and direct the Electricity providers to take back the electricity bills issued to commercial and industrial establishments for the lockdown period,” Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT secretary general and Vipin Ahuja, Delhi state president wrote to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Power distribution companies (discom) in Delhi are managed by private companies Tata Power and Reliance Infra led companies and sources propose that any relief on account of fixed charges can only be declared by the government in Delhi. It is necessary to note that COVID-19 led pandemic had a critical impact in the second wave in Delhi and all of a sudden shops and commercial establishments were closed to restrict the spread of the virus. “Due to the rise in cases, physical reading of meters was stopped and hence provisional billings were done. The inflated bill is nothing but a provisional which can be rectified by the discoms and adjusted accordingly once brought to notice,” said a source.
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Following the measures of Delhi, Noida merchants have also written to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, soliciting a waiver on fixed electricity prices as traders have suffered a difficult time due to COVID-19 led lockdowns in the last year.”Businesses are running at heavy losses since the first wave of COVID-19 from March 2020. A long lockdown was held in the first pandemic and now again in the second wave, all markets were closed due to the second wave of the pandemic. Request you to waive off fixed charge in electricity bills of commercial establishments, traders hotels, resorts, restaurants and water parks affected by COVID-19 pandemic for one year i.e, from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022,” Sushil Kumar Jain, president, Sector 18 Market Association Noida.
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