The power employees have withdrawn their indefinite strike as the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to defer the privatisation of Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) for three months, till January 15, 2021.
Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma agreed to roll back the privatisation plan after talks with the leaders of power employees. However, the agreement could not be signed as UPPCL Chairman Arvind Kumar Singh refused to sign it on Monday, leading to breakdown of talks.
The government announced the decision here on Tuesday after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath summoned the top officials of the UPPCL in the morning and took stock of the situation as the power employees had boycotted the work on Monday leading to disruption in thermal power generation and long hours of supply breakdowns in several districts as the employees refused to attend the faults in power distribution network.
The energy minister said that the strike by the power employees was not in public interest and causing disruption in power supply was illegal and unacceptable.
He urged the power employees to have patience and join their duties from Wednesday as the government was working for an amicable solution to the issues raised by the employees.
The work boycott by the power employees on Monday had seriously impacted power supply in 30 districts of eastern UP. The PVVNL, a wholly owned subsidiary of the UPPCL, controls and manages the power distribution in eastern UP districts.
The call for indefinite strike was given by Power Employees Joint Action Committee and UP Power Officers Association representing the Scheduled Caste and OBC employees of the UPPCL.
The disruption in power supply had created a water crisis in as many as 30 districts, including Lucknow. Power supply to the official residences of the chief minister and several ministers was also disrupted on Monday. At many places in Lucknow, the power supply breakdown was not attended to by the employees for over 20 hours.
The Union government’s decision to fast-track the privatisation of power distribution companies had forced the power employees to go on indefinite strike. The Centre had on September 23, released the standard bidding document (SBD) for the first time and uploaded it on its website. The SBD is the guiding document for states looking to offer discoms to private companies.
This is for the first time that the Central government has drafted guiding SBD for privatisation of discoms. It is in line with the Centre’s efforts to improve the operations and finances of the discoms in various states.
In 2019, the Union power ministry had suggested several private franchise models to the states for the power distribution sector. In May, under the Atmanirbhar package, the Central government had announced that the power distribution in all Union Territories would be privatised.
Currently, power distribution has been privatised in a few cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Agra and Ahmedabad.
The process of privatisation of PVVNL was initiated in June soon after the package was announced in May. The accumulated losses of the PVVNL are Rs 1,500 crore as of March 2020 and the aggregate and technical and commercial loss of 37.9 per cent.
As of March 2020, the total net loss of all five discoms in the state stood at Rs 819 crore, according to the Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) portal. The state’s average aggregate technical and commercial loss is 30 per cent — higher than the national average of 19.19 per cent.
The PVVNL controls and manages electricity supply in eastern UP districts — Ghazipur, Chandauli, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Mau, Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, Ballia, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, Siddharthnagar, Prayagraj, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur and Kaushambi.
In 2018, UP had announced it would offer five cities, including state capital Lucknow and Varanasi, to a private distribution franchisee. The move however failed to take off following the stiff resistance by the power employees and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.