The Samajwadi Party members created noisy scenes and trooped into the Well of the House in the Assembly to protest against privatisation of power distribution in seven districts of the state. The SP members later staged a walkout from the House.
The opposition alleged that the main objective behind privatisation of power distribution was not improvement in power supply but to give undue benefit to private sector companies.
Rebutting the charges, Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma said that there were no plans for privatisation.
“Integrated service providers are being appointed in seven districts having the highest line losses. The service providers will look after power distribution and revenue collection to bring down line losses and improve revenue recovery. Public sector companies would continue to control power generation and transmission,” Sharma said.
The Energy Minister said that it was true that outstanding power dues against government departments were over Rs 11,000 crore.
“This matter will be resolved in a year and a mechanism will be developed so as to prevent creation of fresh arrears. The process of installation of prepaid meters at all government establishments is underway,” he said.
Seeking to turn the tables on the opposition, the minister said that power distribution in Agra was privatised during Bahujan Samaj Party regime in 2009. He said that the previous Akhilesh Yadav government had made desperate efforts to privatise power distribution but for some reasons it failed.
Sharma said that the opposition were unable to counter the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and hence they had join hands to run a malicious campaign against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Akhilesh Yadav is trying to emerge as the messiah of Dalits. Had he been sincere in his intention, then his party should have fielded a Dalit candidate and allotted him the first preference votes in the Rajya Sabha poll,” the minister said.
Congress leader Ajay Kumar lallu said that power employees were up in arms against the government move to privatise power distribution and they had given notice of work boycott on Tuesday (March 27). He said that if immediate steps were not taken and the decision was not rolled back then the power employees were likely to go on indefinite strike.