The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties will pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter sub­si­dies for 13,000 low-in­come cus­tomers in 2023.

This will form part of the So­cial Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme for 2023 tar­get­ing low-in­come and un­der­priv­i­leged ben­e­fi­cia­ries.

The pro­grammes, as de­tailed in the doc­u­ment laid dur­ing Mon­day's Bud­get, the min­istry will un­der­take in­clude the Pro­vi­sion of Util­i­ty Bill As­sis­tance, in which ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13,000 low-in­come cus­tomers of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) will re­ceive wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty sub­si­dies at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $3,750,000.

An­oth­er pro­gramme is the Pro­vi­sion of So­lar Pan­el As­sis­tance, in which ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 low-in­come house­holds that are with­out ac­cess to the elec­tric­i­ty grid will ben­e­fit from the in­stal­la­tion of so­lar pan­els.

Un­der the Pro­vi­sion of Wa­ter Tanks Pro­gramme, the min­istry will dis­trib­ute ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 (800-gal­lon tanks) and 70 (1,000-gal­lon tanks) to house­holds and five 1,000-gal­lon tanks to five com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties.

Out­reach events will be used to in­crease ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to tar­get ap­pli­cants (the el­der­ly and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties) and peo­ple re­sid­ing in re­mote rur­al com­mu­ni­ties who may ex­pe­ri­ence tremen­dous chal­lenges in ac­cess­ing these ameni­ties and in­for­ma­tion.