The CITU backed Electricity Employees Federation of India has urged central government and state government to stop further privatisation of power and energy sector and decided to protest against the implementation of Labour Codes. The national convention of electricity employees and engineers held in Nagpur on Sunday decided to go for stroke on June 26 and blamed Central and State Government for "forcefully privatised its highly profitable, efficient and low tariff power utility in an irregular manner".
"The National Federations of electricity employees and engineers under the banner of National Coordination Committee discussed very gravely about the multi-prong attacks on the public electricity sector and the energy security of our country.
The convention took a serious note over the attacks on the democratic rights of the electricity employees and consumers, especially in UP. The Strike proposal was supported by the Samyukta Kishan Morcha and Central Trade Union leaders present in the Convention. The Strike is the response to all the attacks unleashed by the Central and several State Governments upon the public Power industry.
"After being elected for the third time, the NDA government has become desperate to privatise all the public electricity utilities.
Under the diktat of the Central government, the Chandigarh UT Administration forcefully privatised its highly profitable, efficient and low tariff Power Utility in an irregular manner. Desperate attacks of Privatisation have been unleashed on Purvanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Ltd. (PVVNL) and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Ltd. (DVVNL) of Uttar Pradesh.
It will put the service of 27,000 employees and engineers and 50,000 contract workers at stake. Electricity employees and engineers of UP are fighting for last 87 days defying the instigation and attacks of the UP administration," said Electricity Employees Federation in a statement.
The Federation also blamed Rajasthan Government for starting bidding process to privatise the Generation and Battery Storage Projects. Battle is going on for last several months in Telangana, where the Government has planned to handover the electricity distribution service of South Hyderabad Circle to Adani group., said the Federation.
"Actually, the Central Government is in real haste to privatise the state DISCOMs. A unique regional meeting on Power sector with States and UTs of Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh has been held on 20th February, New Delhi.
As per the Press Release of the Ministry of Power, "the States have urged Centre for support in privatisation of distribution" and "Listing of Utilities will be taken up by States to bring investment."
Undoubtedly, all these State governments will try to move very fast in their privatisation agenda," said Prasanta N Chowdhury, General Secretary of Electricity Employees Federation.
"Further to facilitate the privatisation project, a Group of Ministers have been formed by the Government of India and the convener of the group is the UP Energy Minister, who is infamous for his privatisation drives. And again the Central government is coming with a new draft of the Electricity Amendment Bill.
The struggle is bound to be sharpened in coming days," added the Federation.