Indore: Employees working with Madhya Pradesh West Region Power Distribution Company on Wednesday threatened to go on strike if all the employees suspended in the last 40 days were not reinstated on Thursday. “As many as 120 employees were suspended on allegations that they were disrupting power supply at the behest of the BJP. The allegations were wrong and we had protested against this. At that time, additional chief secretary (energy) ICP Keshari and managing director Vikas Narwal had promised to reinstate all suspended employees by June 20-21 but only eight of them have been reinstated,” said GK Vaishnav, coordinator of Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board Officer-Employee Joint Association.
The association members held a meeting and decided if remaining employees were not reinstated by Thursday then they would go on strike from May 30. “A strike memorandum would be handed over to the Discom authorities on May 27,” Vaishnav said. Following frequent power cuts in the state since Congress government came to power, Discom had identify several employees and held them accountable for power outage and suspended them. Even ministers in chief minister Kamal Nath government claimed that the employees were suspended as they were disrupting power supply at the behest of BJP during Lok Sabha elections.
In total four executive engineers, nine assistant engineers, 27 junior engineers, 79 linemen and 120 office attendants were suspended in Indore and Ujjain division. Besides, several employees hired on contract basis were also terminated. Now that the polling is over, the Discom has undertaken process to reinstate the suspended employees. It reinstated senior engineers and deferred decision on rest which forced the association to issue a threat of strike.