National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers (NCCOEEE) has given a call for nation-wide strike on January 8 and 9 next year to protest against the Indian Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2014.
The bill provides for privatisation of power distribution across the country and end subsidy for power consumers.
A meeting of the NCCOEEE held at New Delhi on Saturday decided for nation-wide strike. It said that around 15 lakh power employees and engineers would go on strike for two days in January.
The call for strike has been supported by all the trade unions, representatives of which were also present in the meeting chaired by All-India Power Engineers Federation chairman Shailendra Dubey.
In a statement here on Sunday, Dubey said that the meeting also resolved that if the National Democratic Alliance government introduced the Indian Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2014 in the winter session of parliament, the power employees would go on lightning strike without serving any notice.
“All the trade unions have supported the strike called by the power employees and engineers and they have assured to join the agitation,” he said.
The power employees’ leader alleged that the private sector power generation companies had already siphoned off Rs 2.5 lakh crore from banks. He said the NDA government, instead of taking any action to recover the public money, was trying to benefit the private players by bringing the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2014 which would empower the government to hand over the power sector to private companies to benefit two industrial houses.