CHANDIGARH: Thousands of power sector employees and engineers under the banner of the National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers held protest meetings, seeking scrapping of the process to privatise two Discoms in Uttar Pradesh and handing over Chandigarh electricity department to a private company.
The protest rallies were held at Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Hyderabad and other states at all projects and Discoms headquarters.
In Shimla the joint front of engineers and employees was held at Kumar House and addressed by Lokesh LThakur and Hira Lal Verma . They said that by privatisation the service conditions of employees will deteriorate and consumers will bear higher tariffs. Even the Himachal government is proceeding towards privatisation and front opposes it.
In Chandigarh protest rally was held in sector 17 and was addressed by Padamjit Singh Chief Patron AIPEf, Subhash Lamba General secretary EEFI , Gopal Joshi and others. The assets of the electricity department are being sent to private party at throw away prices. In the case of Chandigarh privatisation proposal, there is 100 per cent sale of the electricity department, then where will be the competition.
The government is simply privatising the power sector at the cost of the state sector in the name of reforms. The last three decades of market-oriented power sector reforms have exposed the inefficiency of the central government's reform programme.
The present set of reforms is nothing but a desperate attempt by the government to cover up the policy miscalculations of the past decades, while simultaneously protecting the interests of private power generators at the cost of state distribution companies.
IN Uttar Pradesh , the ESMA has been imposed and employees have been warned not to go on strike.Emergency situations have been created in Uttar Pradesh by banning strike, demonstration and employees gatherings. U