Power outages in Chandigarh, striking employees protest privatization
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in
Many areas of Chandigarh are facing power outages as the Electricity Department employees went on a three-day strike, which can be extended, in protest against the privatization of the department after the talks failed.
V K Gupta Spokesperson All India Power Engineers Federation said on Tuesday that the during last two years first time talks were initiated by Advisor to Governor Punjab on Monday but nothing concrete assurance was given.
The power demand in Chandigarh took a sharp dip to 80 MW from 200 MW because of outages. The power engineers and employees organised demonstrations in different states, across the country in support of the anti-privatisation strike of
The Chandigarh electricity employees. Memorandum has been sent to Home Minister, Government of India with demands to drop the unscrupulous decision towards privatisation of efficiently managed, low tariff power department of Chandigarh to the costliest power provider of the country.
Meanwhile, PSEB Engineers’ Association and Haryana Power Engineers Association have written to their respective managements in solidarity with the protest call against privitisation of UT Power department, their memeber will not perform strike duties in UT Chandigarh, during the three days strike period.
Today Haryana employees participated in a protest rally and tomorrow PSPCL engineers and employees will join their counterparts in protest.
Shailendra Dubey Chairman , Rathnakar Rao Secretary General , Ashok Rao , and Padamjit Singh Chief Patron AIPEF will be reaching Chandigarh on Wednesday to take stock of the situation.
NCCOEEE office bearers who are already in Chandigarh today addressed the rally of the power employees.in sector 17.
V K Gupta said that the privatization model of Chandigarh exposes the consumer to market risks that would cause steep and uncontrolled tariff hikes. Most business and ease of livelihood rely upon affordable electricity tariffs for their existence. The guarantee of low tariffs is available to consumers of UT Chandigarh, but with private sector power, utility benefit of low tariffs cannot be ensured. There is no safeguard provided to protect the consumer from profiteering and inflated tariffs by private parties as these are outside the purview of CAG Audit.
A transfer scheme which places existing govt. employees under the service of private party is a clear case of coercion to accept inferior service conditions. Under proposed transfer scheme of the Chandigarh administration, all the existing employees would be transferred to a private company which is an inferior service condition as compared to Govt Service. This violates section 133 of the Electricity Act 2003.
February 22,2022
