“Tangedco CMD is continuing to refuse to meet the trade union office-bearers and not providing time to discuss issues related to the engineers and workers. He also refuses to implement the state government order 304-I regards leverage provided to physically challenged and women employees who are unable to report for work in the absence of public transport during the COVID-19 lockdown,” said the Joint Action Council statement signed by 16 trade unions.

“The unions charged that the utility has abolished several posts in the thermal power plants and outsourced day-to-day operations in the three substations. “Such a move not only lead to non-creation of new job opportunities but also, deny promotional avenues for the serving engineers,” they said, adding that the management refuse to appoint assistant engineers for the newly created 63 section offices has caused a lot of hardship for the consumers.

“We have raised all these issues with the electricity Minister P Thangamani, but no solution was found yet. Tangedco CMD is also refusing to meet us. Hence, we decided to hold the dharna protest on November 4 to draw the attention of the state government,” they said.

A leader of the trade union said that the dharna protest could disrupt works at the section offices. “At some of the section offices, the collection counters might remain closed affecting receiving of electricity charges. The consumers should bear with the hardship as the protest was in the larger public interest,” he added.