State-owned electricity giant PT PLN has said that it disbursed Rp9.34 trillion in electricity stimulus to the public and the business sectors in January-October 2021.
“The distribution of the stimulus will continue until December 2021,” director of commerce and customer management at the company, Bob Saril, said at the virtual Forum Merdeka Barat 9 (FMB9) Friday Productive Dialogue on Friday.
He informed that the stimulus was a continuation of a similar program that was run in 2020 during which Rp13.2 trillion was disbursed to 32 million customers.
According to him, the subsidy was provided in the form of a 50-percent discount to the Household (R) 1, Business 1, and Industry 1 with 450 Volt-ampere (VA) and a 25-percent discount to R1 with 900 VA on usage and subscription fee.
Furthermore, he emphasized that the corporation also paid great attention to the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by providing a 50-percent discount on the subscription fee and another 50 percent on the minimum bill.
The director also said that the change in the percentage of the discounts — which in 2020 reached 100 percent — was due to the improvement in the COVID-19 situation.
Regarding the distribution of subsidies in 2021, he said that PLN had no difficulties as it had succeeded in running the program in 2020.
Thus, the customers’ data — names, addresses, and amount of subsidized electrical power – were available, he added.
In addition to the subsidies, the company has helped MSME players to recover in the midst of the pandemic by providing price discounts for power additions, he said.
“Normally, the cost is Rp4 million. However, we subsidized it to Rp100-200 thousand, thus people can freely use their electricity to recover their MSMEs,” Saril added.
Source: Antara News