Electricity amendment rules pushing the privatisation agenda- AIPEF
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ January 9,2024
All India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPEF) chairman Shailendra Dubey said that the central government is continuing with its privatization agenda of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 through the Electricity (Amendment) Rules. In this process several rules were amended in 2023.
Despite Coal India having sufficient coal reserves, public sector thermal power plants of the states are being instructed to import coal by the power ministry using emergency powers. The burden of increasing cost of power generation is falling on the financially poor power distribution companies of the state.
It may be mentioned that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 is pending with the standing committee on energy and can be presented in the coming budget session beginning on February1. Large scale privatization of transmission is going on in almost every province in the name of tariff based competitive bidding. . The parallel licence in distribution of power is being done at the cost of the state Discoms network. Central sector is trying to grab the projects of state governments in the name of joint ventures. In joint ventures there is no representation of state power sector employees.
Dubey said that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 is an attempt to push a failed experiment to benefit private players at the cost of state Discoms. Experiments of urban distribution Franchisee miserably failed in various cities across the country. State Governments were compelled to cancel these agreements.
Dubey was addressing the gathering of APSEB engineers while releasing the New Year diary and table calendar in a programme, at Vijayawada. Dubey said that the engineers of Andhra Pradesh were not getting their annual increments even after completing a year of service.
Electricity amendment rules pushing the privatisation agenda- AIPEF. V K Gupta spokesperson AIPEF said that the Standing Committee has not yet given time for talks to the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) or any other power workers’ federation. The biggest stakeholders in the power sector are electricity consumers and power workers who have been sidelined
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