National federations of railway, defence, postal, education oppose power privatisation- AIPEF
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ February 4,2025
Various national federations, including those from the railways, defence, postal, and education sectors, have opposed the power privatisation in Uttar Pradesh and other states and extended their full support to protesting power employees. All the federations were participating in the online meeting of All India Forum Against Privatisation (AIFAP).
Shailendra Dubey Chairman All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) and Mohan Sharma General Secretary, All India Federation of Electricity Employees (AIFEE) were the two main speakers. The other trade union leaders who also spoke included Sampat Desai, Vijay Kumar Bandhu, C. Sreekumar, Inder Singh Badana, J.N. Shah. Around 300 trade union leaders including Padamjit Singh Chief Patron AIPEF, Ajaypal Singh Atwal General secretary PSEBEA participated in an on-line meeting conducted by Dr. Mathew of AIFAP, informed V K Gupta.
Dubey dwelt upon the privatisation process of Chandigarh ,Uttar Pradesh, and other states in the country. The privatisation process of electricity departments started during covid times . Dadra , Nagar Haveli was privatised and handed over to Torrent. Chandigarh electricity department has now been handed over to Eminent Electric Company (RPG Group) from February 1 despite the fact its the tariff is lowest in the region and l it is a profit making department. The administration forced half of the employees to take VRS.
Dubey said that in Uttar Pradesh 42 out of total 75 districts are proposed to be handed over to the private sector. The government is not honouring its own written agreements with employees and engineers that no privatisation will be done and they will be consulted over any reform process.. The pending arrears of various government consumers and others are RS.1,23000 crores whereas the government claimed unsubsitianted losses of RS.110000 crores. It is on record wherever franchisees were introduced the private company did not give any pending arrears to power department but instead pocketed the money collected. All the 27 lakh power sector employees will oppose every move to privatise the power sector.
Mohan Sharma said that by installing smart meters in Maharashtra about 50000 employees will lose jobs. These include 30000 meter readers,10000 bill distributors,6000 cash calculators. The smart meters are being purchased at Rs.12000 per meter against Rs.3000 for single phase meters and Rs.6000 for three phase meters. The protests against smart meters installation is going on through Maharashtra.
National federations of railway, defence, postal, education oppose power privatisation- AIPEF. To discuss the future course of agitation the meeting of all the stake holders will be held shortly.
