Maharashtra government imposes electricity surcharge

The Maharashtra government has imposed an electricity surcharge of 10 paise per unit on industrial and commercial consumers to finance a scheme to provide 25,000 solar pumps to agricultural consumers. Under the solar pump scheme, farmers will be provided 100,000 solar pumps in three phases between 2019 and 2021, of which 25,000 will be given in the first phase. The total expense of the scheme is Rs 8.25 billion.