The power engineers of the state will go up in arms against the state government move to privatise power distribution saying this Government decisions will increase power losses and make a big hole in common man’s pocket.
The power engineers will go on strike on February 17 and 18 The engineers working in shift duties in transmission and generation would be spared from this strike to ensure maintenance of grid while on February 19 all the engineers will go on state wide 24-hour long strike, convener of the Viduyt Karamchari Sangharsh Samiti Shailendra Dubey said.
Government proposes to go for privatization in Ghziabad, Meerut, Kanpur and Varanasi."This seems a weird decision. The Government seems to go for privatization of those areas where the line loss is the minimum. It looks like government is going ahead for privatization of profits and nationalization of losses," Dubey told The Pioneer here on Sunday.
At present Government is purchasing 28558 million unit (MU) of electricity at Rs 12893 crore (at Rs 5.50/unit) , from other sources 3380 MU at Rs 16162 (at Rs 4.77 per unit), from NTPC 27167 MU for Rs 9012 crore (Rs 3.32/unit) while state-generated 27639 MU is bought at Rs 10088 crore (Rs 3.65/unit). Among the private players 2323 MU electricity is purchase from Bajaj for Rs 1801 crore at Rs 7.75 per unit. While from Roza I and II units 3874 MU each of power is purchased for Rs 2349 crore at Rs 6.06 per unit respectively.
Dubey said this clearly shows that Government spends more for purchase of power from private sector than state-owned UPPCl and NTPC."The state has itself witnessed two examples of privatization. In Greater Noida and Agra government purchases electricity at higher price and sells it at lesser price to the private Discom. The power engineers will oppose that Government move and therefore will stage protest," he said.