Around 45,000 employees, including engineers, of UP Power Corporation Limited went on a 48- hour strike from Monday, demanding an undertaking from the state government on payment of provident funds to employees.
The employees are agitated over a scam in the Power Employees Provident Fund Trust, which invested over Rs 2,000 crore of provident fund in tainted housing non-banking finance company DHFL.
The employees staged a noisy demonstration in front of UPPCL headquarters at Shakti Bhawan and in all districts and power installations on Monday.
The strike, which started at 8 am on Monday, will continue till 8 am on Wednesday.
Power Employee’s Joint Action Committee convenor Shailendra Dubey claimed that the strike was a total success.
Disruption in work by power employees caused inconvenience to consumers as faults in distribution lines were not attended and most offices of Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration were locked.
The state government has decided to act tough against the agitating power employees and has directed all district magistrates to lodge FIRs against employees if they tried to damage government property or obstruct power supply.
Meanwhile, Shailendra Dubey said that the action committee had warned the UPPCL that if their demands for issuance of a notification by the government taking responsibility for safe return of their providet fund money invested in DHFL by the Uttar Pradesh Power Sector Employees’ Trust and action against IAS officers, including former chairman of UPPCL, responsible for it were not met by Tuesday, the employees would intensify the agitation.
Dubey said that engineers and employees maintaining generation units and other emergency services had been exempted from the strike.
A PEJAC press release issued on Monday said that the UPPCL deposited Rs 2631.20 crore of the GPF and Rs 1491.50 crore of CPF of employees in the DHFL. However, Rs 1185.50 crore of the GPF and Rs 669.30 crore of CPF were withdrawn by the Trust.
The action committee alleged that over Rs 2,200 crore of the provident fund deposit had been lost while the deposit in the DHFL was made on an annual interest rate of 7.75 per cent.