The Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Workers’ Unions on Monday petitioned Tangedco CMD Rajesh Lakhoni raising their opposition to Electricity Minister V Senthilbalaji’s recent announcement of restructuring the distribution wing of the utility. He had earlier said it will be done based on the number of electricity connections coming under each section's offices headed by an assistant engineer to region-level office headed by the chief engineer to distribute the workload equally.

Calling on Tangedco CMD at the headquarters, the unions pointed to the Minister’s press release that sought to distribute electricity connections equally on the basis of the village, town Panchayat and Municipality to each section office while the connections would be distributed at sub-division and division level offices as well.

The utility’s distribution wing has nine regions which in turn have 42 distribution circles under it. Under the distribution circles, there will be division and the sub-division and section offices will be the field level office.

“The section offices, sub-divisions, and divisions were created on the basis of the tripartite agreement signed for the wage settlement and workload agreement,” they said, adding in the hilly areas, the number of electricity connections for each section would be decided on the consultation with the Superintendent Engineer while in the rural areas, the section office jurisdiction was decided on basis of the number of transformers. In the cities and towns, the jurisdiction was decided based on the number of connections, the petition said.

The union asked the management to issue a notice under the Labour Disputes Act to hold consultation with the trade unions to reach an amicable solution if it seeks to make changes in the workload. “Hence we appeal to drop the proposal immediately,” the unions appealed.