The government started from February 10 issuing one-time GEL 20 (about USD 11.2) allowance to up to million households to pay electricity bills, Alexander Khetaguri, the energy minister, said.

This “modest assistance” from the government aims at mitigating inflation affect on citizens, Khetaguri said.

The government said about million households, defined as “active electricity consumers” – those who have consumed at least 200 kilowatt electricity in last six months – would be eligible for the assistance with total worth GEL 20 million.

Georgia’s annual inflation rate continued to rise in January to 12.3% from 11.2% in December due to increasing food and fuel prices, according to the state statistics office, Geostat.

After increase of household water tariffs in Tbilisi and price on municipal transport tickets, the Tbilisi municipality increased fees for waste collection services starting from January. In an efforts to secure collection of fees, a new rule was enforced from February, according to which a household will have to pay electricity, water and waste collection fees through integrated, single bill, meaning that in case of a failure to pay waste collection fee or water consumption tariff, it will be cut of electricity supply. Opposition has slammed this decision of the authorities and the Christian-Democratic Movement said it would challenge the decision in the constitutional court.