Power engineers and employees  to hold rally in Delhi on Nov 23 against electricity bill- AIPEF

Bahadurjeet Singh/Rupnagar

Thousands of power employees and engineers from different states, including Punjab and Haryana , will hold a massive  rally in Delhi on November  23 to oppose the proposed electricity bill and privatisation of  the energy sector by the Centre.

 All India Power Engineers  Federation (AIPEF) Spokesperson VK Gupta said that the  rally will start from “Ramlila Maidan and  proceed toJantar Mantar”. The mass awakening conferences are going on in every state of the country against the bill for the last  four months  and this will culminate  into a massive demonstration in New Delhi.

He said besides opposing the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022, power engineers and employees  are demanding an old pension scheme and regularisation  of all outsourced employees.

V K Gupta  said that although Lok Sabha has referred Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022
to the Standing Committee on Energy, till date the standing committee  has not held any discussions with power employees or electricity consumers who are the biggest stakeholders.

He said that  the power sector needs to be chaperoned by planning rather than market forces.

Power engineers and employees to hold rally in Delhi on Nov 23 against electricity bill- AIPEF spokesperson VK Gupta said, the amendments planned to the Electricity Act 2003 would lead to the privatization of the  power distribution  sector across the country .This would  burden the poor, middle class, and  farmers with huge tariff increases in due course of time. He said any unilateral action to get the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 passed in Parliament without taking the electricity employees and  engineers across the country into confidence would be strongly opposed and all 27 lakh electricity employees and engineers of the country will be forced to resort to a nationwide strike in protest against the move.

November 14,2022