Power employees serve strike notice against UP govt’s move to privatise Purvanchal discom

When the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Council (UPSEB) was disbanded in 2000, the annual loss was just Rs 77 crore.

Opposing the government’s move to privatise the Purvanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam (PuVVNL) discom, power sector employees on Monday served a notice of agitation to the state government as well as the management of UPPCL.

According to the notice, if the decision to disband and privatise PuVVNL is not withdrawn by the government or if any further step is taken in this direction, all power employees, contract workers of the power corporations, junior engineers as well as engineers will resort to agitation, including a strike.

Appealing to chief minister Yogi Adityanath to intervene in the matter, office bearers of Vidyut Karmachari Sanyunta Sangharsh Samiti said the decision to privatise the discom is in violation of the agreement signed in the presence of the energy minister and Sangharsh Samiti on April 5, 2018, in which the government had said that no move to privatise the power sector would be taken without first taking the power employees into confidence.

Urging the chairman of UPPCL to review the failures of the privatisation and franchisee experiments conducted in the past, Shailendra Dubey, the convenor of the Samiti said, “When the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Council (UPSEB) was disbanded in 2000, the annual loss was just Rs 77 crore. But due to mismanagement and wrong policies of the government after the dissolution, this deficit has now ballooned to more than Rs 95,000 crore. Similarly, the experiments with privatisation in Greater Noida and franchisee model in Agra have also proved to be a complete failure. The question arises as to why these failed experiments are once again being imposed on Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam,” he said.

It may be mentioned that the UP government has given its in-principle approval for the proposed unbundling of the Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam (PuVVNL), which is one of the five power distribution companies which are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL). As per the proposal, PuVVNL will be disbanded to form three smaller corporations, which will be then privatised.