Govt increasing people's burden through power tariff hike, says BJP MLA
BJP leaders said there is no objection to offering pension and gratuity benefits for Mescom employees, but opposed the decision to collect funds for the purpose from consumers.
Addressing the gathering, Mangaluru City South MLA D Vedavyas Kamath said that the Congress govt has been misleading the public through the free electricity scheme. In the meantime, the govt has been secretly burdening consumers with increased tariffs.
The MLA said the Congress govt has been blaming the govt to confuse people.
"Congress leaders have been claiming that the tariff hike was decided during the BJP rule. They are trying to shield their own mistake by blaming the BJP. The govt has been collecting 34 to 40 paise per unit of power consumption from the consumers towards the pension and gratuity of employees. The govt has the responsibility to pay pension and gratuity to employees," said Kamath.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
15 Most Beautiful Female Athletes in the World
WomenSportOnline.com
Click Here
Undo
Criticising the implementation of the Shakti scheme, the MLA said that while the govt portrays the guarantee scheme as an achievement, it has also increased the tariff. The power tariff of the consumer connections has also been increased drastically, he said, adding that the govt has been robbing power consumers in the state. He also accused the govt of charging Rs 10,500 for electricity smart meters, which are available in the market for Rs 1,500.
Former MLC Monappa Bhandary said Karnataka is being ruled by a 'collection govt' for the first time in its history. He warned that the protest will be intensified if the govt does not roll back the power tariff hike.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
3 minutes ago
- Economic Times
When will voters blame Trump for this economy?
Donald Trump's economic policies face scrutiny as Americans grapple with financial challenges. Polls reveal concerns about inflation and the impact of Trump's economic agenda. Blue-collar voters express worries over tariffs. Republicans risk political setbacks in upcoming elections. The party's future hinges on voter sentiment and the strength of the Democratic alternative. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads President Donald Trump has claimed responsibility for the economy virtually every day since his inauguration. Late last week, the White House declared it a smashing success in a press release called '200 Days of Winning: President Trump is Keeping His Promises.' Yet many Americans are still struggling to get by amid mediocre economic growth and difficulty affording necessities, from groceries to prompts a key political question: When will voters hold Trump — now back on the job for more than six months — responsible for their financial plight? The answer could decide the battle for Congress in the 2026 midterm elections and determine the fight to succeed Trump in the White House in an early August YouGov poll for The Economist, voters' No. 1 issue was 'inflation/prices,' which at 21% beat the next most important concern, 'jobs/economy' by 7 percentage points. Trump's job approval rating in this survey was cratering at 41%. The president's handling of the economy rated roughly the same, at 40%. Those poor numbers are driven in part by dour reviews from independents and fit with recent data produced by Democratic a poll conducted in late July for the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, Trump's job approval rating clocked in higher than the YouGov survey, hitting 45%. But a 41% plurality of registered voters said the president's second term was unfolding as 'worse' than expected and only 42% approved of his signature economic package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4. Approval of the OBBBA among independents, according to this poll? A dismal 32%.Moreover, an early summer Democratic poll shows that 58% of voters view the economy as 'Trump's economy,' versus blaming former President Joe if the polls are accurate, Trump's blue-collar voters are running out of patience. 'In the spring, many [blue collar voters] were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt on his tariff plan — but by summer, many expressed serious concerns that tariffs are hurting their lives by making things more expensive,' reads a July 30 analysis of a focus group conducted by The Working Class Project, an initiative led by a Democratic super together, these findings put congressional Republicans in dire straits. And if such views proliferate among the electorate, it's not only Republicans on Capitol Hill who will feel the political pinch. Republicans vying to succeed Trump in 2028, especially Vice President JD Vance, could pay an extremely high of course, there are other surveys, and other ways of interpreting the begin with Trump's average job approval rating, calculated by RealClearPolitics at 45.7%. That's not half bad in our polarized times. The president's handling of the economy rated a similar 45% in CNBC's 'All America Economic Survey' fielded from July 3 through Aug. 3. Granted, that was a high-water mark in recent assessments of Trump's leadership on this the president's fate, and that of his party, will rest not only with how voters feel about the economy and the effectiveness of his governing agenda, but also on what the political alternative on the eve of President Barack Obama's reelection in 2012, the unemployment rate was hovering like a dark cloud over the economy at 7.9%, up one point from the previous month. That's a lot of Americans out of work — and nearly double the 4.1% rate just prior to Election Day 2024. But Republican Mitt Romney, a career businessman and corporate turnaround artist, did not ride those grim numbers into the White Heye, a Republican strategist in Washington active in campaigns during the Obama era, said there's a lesson there for Democrats assuming Trump and the GOP are inexorably doomed based on voters' economic anxiety. But so, too, must Republicans be careful not to assume the trade deals Trump has lately touted, and macro indicators showing a resilient if not entirely strong U.S. economy, will produce electoral victory.'It's a fluid thing,' Heye, an occasional Trump critic, told explained that Trump has been given some latitude (and time) by voters to improve the economy because they blamed Biden almost entirely for the inflation that spiked on his watch, even though higher prices were in part a reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, and resulting public policy decisions, that began during Trump's first term. 'That hangover that remains continues to give Trump the ability to blame things on Biden.'When might voters finally absolve Biden of responsibility and point fingers at Trump? 'Companies are absorbing costs thus far on tariffs. That's not going to last forever,' Heye another parallel with Obama might be 44th president pursued health care reform, convinced the eventual Affordable Care Act was good public policy and, as politicians are wont to say, therefore good politics. But in the short term, the law known as Obamacare was a political disaster for Democrats, costing the party 63 seats in the House seats and seven in the Senate. With Trump's firm belief in tariffs and insistence on building a protectionist moat around voters' access to foreign products, a 'shellacking' of his own can't be ruled out. But of course, it matters what kind of alternative Democrats are offering.
The Wire
6 minutes ago
- The Wire
Explained: The Delhi Governments Bill to Regulate Private School Fees Is No Victory for Parents
The Delhi Private Schools Fee Regulation Bill 2025 makes dissent impossible and de-risks the business of education. The Delhi government has just passed a new law to regulate private school fees . It is being called "historic" and a victory for parents. But reading the fine print of the law shows that one cannot accept it for what it says, but for what it is designed to do. This Bill is not a shield for parents but for school managements. It is a web of rules and omissions designed not to deliver justice, but to manage and exhaust dissent. The background Private education in Delhi isn't a simple service. It is a market defined by a power imbalance. Getting your child into a decent school is an ordeal. Once they are in, you are a captive consumer for the next 14 years. The schools themselves, many built on public land and legally mandated to be non-profits, operate as sophisticated businesses. The "non-profit" tag has become legal fiction, a convenient cloak for an industry whose real goal is profit generation. For years, the battle over fees has been fought in courtrooms and on the streets. The previous Aad Aadmi Party government's strategy was aggressive: forcing schools to open their books for a financial audit. It correctly identified the core of the issue: you cannot regulate fees without scrutinising accounts. But the effort was bogged down in politics and litigation. This new Bill by the BJP is the response. The question is: does it learn from that history and empower the parent or does it simply create a more elegant system to keep them in their place? The labyrinth The Bill creates a three-tiered system . On paper, it looks orderly. In practice, it is an architecture of disenfranchisement. Let's walk through it. First, the school level committee. The composition of the school-level committee is laid out in Section 4. The chairperson is from the school management. The secretary is the principal. On one side of the table, you have them, plus three teachers – their own employees, in a position of structural dependency. On the other side? Five parents, selected by a "draw of lots." The power in that room is deliberately rigged. The management are insiders with the data and authority. The parents are temporary outsiders, atomised by that "draw of lots" – a mechanism that ensures any skilled, troublesome parent can be conveniently removed the next year by the luck of the draw. Then, Section 5(4) states that any decision on fees requires "unanimous agreement." This gives the management the power to block any parent-led initiative. Although it can also technically allow parents to block a management-led initiative as well, power will skew towards the management for more reasons than one (more on this in the subsequent paragraphs). It's a committee designed not for consensus, but for guaranteed deadlock. Second, grievance. The management uses its veto. You, the parent, are outraged and want to appeal. Here, the Bill erects its most formidable barrier. Section 2(2) states that an individual parent has no right to appeal. None. To appeal, you must form an "aggrieved parents group" comprising "not less than 15%" of the school's total parent body. In a school of 3,000 students, this would mean amassing 450 parents. This is monumental barrier to justice, designed to be almost insurmountable. It transforms the right to justice from an individual right into a privilege reserved only for those with the extraordinary resources to build a mass movement. Third, the bar on justice. Section 17 of the Bill explicitly bars the jurisdiction of civil courts. This removes an independent, final avenue for redress for every parent limited by the "15%" stipulation. Remember, the foundational committee is controlled by the very management they seek to challenge. The ghosts in the machine What a law does not say is often more important than what it does. This Bill is defined by its strategic silences. Consider this central fact: An audit, the single most important word for financial transparency is completely absent from this entire Bill. Instead of demanding a forensic financial audit, Section 8 offers a vague 18 "factors" for setting fees, like "location," "infrastructure," and "education standard." These words are meaningless without an audit. A school can claim it needs a fee hike for "infrastructure" without ever having to prove it could not be paid for from its existing surplus funds. It shifts the debate from the verifiable mathematics of an audit to an endless argument. It replaces "Show us your books" with "Trust our story." Tucked away in Section 19 is another ghost. The Bill gives the government the power to frame "Rules" to implement the Act at a later date. This is a classic statecraft technique. Pass a palatable Bill in public, but control its real teeth and claws in the fine print of the Rules, which are drafted later, away from legislative scrutiny. The most critical procedures are all yet to be decided. The poison pills Finally, the Bill is seeded with legal traps that ensure the powerful stay powerful. First, the amnesty clause. A proviso in Section 5(1) is a masterpiece of quiet deception. It says the fee being charged as of April 1, 2025, is the "deemed" legal starting point. The implication is staggering. It effectively launders any illegal or unapproved fee hikes that schools pushed through before the law came into effect. It takes a potentially illegal figure and sanctifies it, rewarding the lawbreakers by making their illicit gains the legitimate baseline for all future calculations. Second, the spectacle of the circular penalty. Section 12 boasts of hefty fines for violations. It is meant to look tough, but is an illusion. A "non-profit" school has one main source of revenue: your fees. A fine imposed for exploiting parents will, by financial necessity, be recouped from the very same parents through future fees. The punishment is circular. The Bill studiously avoids the only real deterrents: personal financial liability for management officials, or a credible process for the government to take over the school. The private school fee regulation bill thus paves the way for a law that rigs the debate in a committee room, makes appealing a near-impossible task, removes the power of judicial review, strips out the essential tool of a financial audit, and forgives past illegalities and creates a fake punishment. This Bill does not help parents but de-risks the business of education. It provides stability and predictability not for the parent, but for the school industry, making it a safer, more attractive investment. This article went live on August twelfth, two thousand twenty five, at thirty-three minutes past four in the afternoon. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Mint
32 minutes ago
- Mint
PM Modi brought us out of huge crisis: Late Ahmed Patel's son Faisal praises prime minister; says ‘I just exist in Cong'
Faisal Patel, son of late Congress stalwart Ahmed Patel, has showered rare praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership during Operation Sindoor, the military response to terror bases in Pakistan following the deadly Pahalgam attack that claimed 26 civilian lives. The remarks come at a politically sensitive time, with the Congress party openly criticising the BJP-led Centre over its handling of the operation. Yet Faisal Patel, while reaffirming his association with the Congress, struck a markedly different tone, somewhat echoing Congress MP from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor. Speaking to ANI, Congress stalwart Ahmed Patel's son Faisal was emphatic in his approval of the Modi government's crisis management. 'It can't be better than who's running the show (the central government) ... The armed forces have done a great job, and PM Narendra Modi showed great leadership and brought us out of a huge crisis,' he said. Faisal Patel further applauded the prime minister's approach to choosing capable bureaucrats and elevating them to key ministerial roles. 'I am proud of our armed forces. I have a lot of respect for Jaishankar ji. How Modi ji picks up bureaucrats and makes them leaders and puts them in ministry roles, is a very good thing,' he added. While clarifying that he remains a Congress member, Faisal Patel did not shy away from voicing his concerns about the party's internal functioning. 'Rahul Gandhi is a hardworking leader. There are some very bright and intelligent leaders in the Congress, like Shashi Tharoor, DK Shivakumar, Revanth Reddy, Deependra Hooda, and Sachin Pilot. They are very capable leaders. There are problems internally, and I believe the right advice is not given to seniors who are running the party... Their advisors are not doing a good job. They come and go. The senior leaders' advice is not heeded,' he remarked. Patel said he has taken a 'sabbatical from public life' but has not left the party. 'I am not upset with the Congress at all. The whole party is my family, and I have good relations with the senior leaders of the party... I am still in the Congress party... I just exist in Congress... The people of Gujarat and the local leaders have wonderful things to say about me,' he said. The late Congress leader's son also expressed strong confidence in India's defence apparatus and the current leadership's commitment to national security.
