A State-level conference will be organised by the Odisha Rajya Bidyut Shramik Karmachari Sangha in Prajamandal Bhawan here from December 22 for three days, where over 2,000 delegates from 60 electrical divisions of Odisha are scheduled to participate.
Senior trade union leader Rama Chandra Khuntia, PCC president, Jayadev Jena and leader of Opposition in Assembly Bhupindar Singh will attend the meeting and address the participants.
At a Press meet held here, Sangha's State general secretary Prasant Mohapatra told newsmen that the State Government is apathetic towards the genuine demands of the employees and workers. He revealed that the main agenda of discussions to be taken up in the meeting includes protesting ENZEN in undivided Dhenkanal district.
Sangha will demand halt to privatisation of works pertaining to 11 KV electric lines by CESU authorities and hassle-free power supply to each electrical customer, he informed.
All the power distribution companies were privatised to upgrade the customers' service, but it has been found that the private companies have failed to live up to the expectations of the consumers. Instead, the services have gone worse than earlier and the employees and workers' sufferings have compounded in last 14 years, alleged Mohapatra.
He said crores of rupees as loans taken from the World Bank, DFID, FCI and REC etc were bungled in name of reformation. On the contrary, there has been a heavy slash in the strength of manpower in the department. While in 1999, 35,000 employees and workers were engaged to serve 14 lakh electrical consumers in the State, now, the number of consumers has increased to 53 lakh, whereas only 15,000 workers and employees are working.
This is a prime reason why in Odisha, the consumers are not getting proper service, said Mohapatra. Besides, it has been observed that the field workers are targeted by the consumers many times. "No safety equipment and mechanical accessories are supplied to the workers by ENZEN. So accidents are occurring most often leading to injury and death of many workers. But, neither the Government, nor the franchise company is compensating the victim staff," lamented Mohapatra.
He said since ENZEN's entry in 2012, it has to pay a huge arrear of Rs 16 crore towards power cost to CESU. However, as yet the higher authorities of CESU have no plant as to how to collect the sum of money, he said, apprehending that ENZEN might quit Odisha at any movement, not being able to pay the huge arrears. He dubbed ENZEN as a cheat also.
Among others, Akshyaya Tripathy, Malaya Nanda, Bikash Sahoo, Pankaj Tripathy, Phani Mishra, Surendra Das and Pranabandhu Mohanty were also present on the occasion.