Power sector staff protest Electricity Amendment Bill

Jaipur: Power sector employees and engineers held token protests on Monday against the Electricity Amendment Bill 2022, on the call of All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF). The Electricity Amendment Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on Monday by Union minister R K Singh which proposes to end all subsidies to power consumers.
AIPEF claimed that the amendment will end all subsidies to power consumers, which would affect commoners, especially farmers and the downtrodden.
Last week, the union wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention and demanded the bill to be sent to the standing committee.
“On the call of the National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers, today lakhs of electricity employees and engineers across the country stopped work and demonstrated vigorously,” an AIPEF statement said.
Shailendra Dubey, chairman, AIPEF, said in the statement that the power workers took to the streets, boycotting work and protesting the bill which has been introduced in the Parliament “in an undemocratic manner with a view to complete privatisation of the energy sector”.
As per the statement, electricity employees are demanding that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 should be withdrawn in its present form and if the government wants to bring it then it should be referred to the standing committee so that all the stakeholders, especially the common electricity consumers and power workers, may get an opportunity to submit their view points.