Electricity has become expensive in Himachal Pradesh from this month. Milk and environmental cess have also been included in the electricity bill of consumers. Electricity prices will increase by ten paise per unit for domestic consumers and two paise to six rupees per unit for others. Due to this, more than 27 lakh consumers of the state will get a shock of expensive electricity.
Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla had approved the Electricity Duty Amendment Act 2024 passed in the monsoon session of the Assembly last year. For the last few months, the board has had to make changes in the software to collect milk and environmental cess. The work of updating the software has now been completed. Both these cess will be added to the electricity bills to be issued this month. Milk cess will be levied on domestic consumers, while consumers of all other categories will have to pay environment cess along with milk. Milk cess will not be collected from domestic consumers with zero bill.
Milk cess as well as environment cess will be collected from small, medium and large industries, commercial, stone crushers, temporary connections, and charging station owners. Apart from the milk cess of 10 paise, all these categories will also have to pay environment cess ranging from 2 paise to Rs 6 per unit.
Industries have been divided into three categories of small, medium and large industries for collecting environment cess. 2 paise per unit will be levied on small industries, 4 paise on medium industries, 10 paise on large industries, 10 paise on commercial consumers, 2 rupees on temporary connections and 2 rupees per unit on stone crushers. A cess of Rs 6 per unit will be collected from electric vehicle charging stations.