CHANDIGARH: Massive demonstrations and protest meetings at all power utilities headquarters and projects including Haryana and , Jammu and Kashmir, in support of strike by UP power employees and engineers were held today on a call given by National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees & Engineers (NCCOEEE).
Power employees, including engineers under the banner of UP Vidyut Karmchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti , after a state wide work boycott on Wednesday , have gone on a 72-hour-long total strike from today demanding implementation of the3rd. December 2022 agreement signed in the presence of the energy
Samiti convenor Shailendra Dubey said employees were forced to go on a strike since the UP Power Corporation and the state government were not honouring the written pact. He said the energy minister had sought 15 days to address the employees’ issues, but nothing had been done even after 16 weeks of signing the agreement.
NCCOEEE Convener Prashant Chaudhary and AIPEF Secretary General are reaching Lucknow today to and will rally of power employees and engineers.
V K Gupta a spokesperson of AIPEF sain that NCCOEEE has written a letter to Chief Minister Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday seeking his intervention immediately to resist the privatization of state owned power generation transmission and distribution utilities of Uttar Pradesh . The letter mentions that the power employees of Uttar Pradesh were in the path of struggle from November, 2022 against the privatization attempts directed by the UP Government to dispose of two new 800 MW generation units of Anpara and Obra and related transmission assets.
On 3rd December 2022 a written agreement was signed in presence of the Energy Minister of UP, between Vidyut Karmachari Samyukt Sangharsh Samiti and UP Power Corporation with an assurance of not to privatise the power assets. In a complete retrograde move, the Management of the power corporations is now denying the mutually agreed and signed agreement.
The striking electricity employees are also demanding to regularize the contractual workers engaged in perennial jobs of the electricity sector, reintroduce the old pension scheme (OPS) and to scrap the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022.