Voice of Electricity Workers April-June 2002 Index
A REPORT ON THE CONFERENCE OF KERALA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD OFFICERS
ASSOCIATION
K.R.UNNITHAN
The tenth state conference of
the K.S.E.B.Officers' Association was held at Kannoor on 20th and 21st of April
2002.It was conducted in quiet a different atmosphere when compared to the last
conference. Now, ADB is dictating the policies. ADB is drafting the reform bill
and what not .In the fitness of things one should say that the governance of the
state of Kerala has been taken over by ADB.
Adhering to the dictates of ADB
, Government of Kerala has introduced a bill in the legislative Assembly namely
"The Kerala Infrastructure Development Bill" which envisages the privatisation
of 22 sectors under the regime of GOK which includes power, water supply,
irrigation , dams, health, etc. A public enterprises commission has been
constituted and a report has been brought out by the commission which recommends
on the closure/ privatisation of the loss making PSUs.The report also insist on
the stoppage of wages of the workers in those PSUs.Recently there was a three
day workshop at Kovalam beach resort for HODs and other bureaucrats led by ADB
in which ministers also participated for "modernising government programme "in
line with ADBs' interest. In the document guiding this workshop it is written as
follows "clearly, the reforms include sustained and planned effort against the
militancy of labour…….".Already, labour, industrial and IT policies have been
mooted with the above philosophy. The 32 day historic and gloriously unified
strike of government employees and teachers strike was tackled by the Chief
Minister A.K.Antony conceiving this philosophy of ADB and like wise tools of
imperialist forces even though he failed this time.
In pace with the above,
there was continuous attack on the Association/T.U activities and service
conditions of officers and employees in K.S.E.Board.Sathyagrha is banned.ESMA is
invoked .Guidelines for transfer is now in the wastebin.Thousands of places were
abolished. Promotions are withheld for months. Recruitments were banned. Wages
for work on holidays were stopped. Wages and salaries were delayed to establish
that these are not the rights of the employees, as pointed out by the Minister
in a conference of T.Us and officer's Asssociations.Power tariffs were increased
by 25% while all other fees were increased manifold , which in fact unbearable
to the weaker and marginalized sections. Load shedding was re-introduced on
financial grounds when there is surplus availability of power. Now , a white
paper in tune with the ADB dictations are being prepared in which further
onslaughts on pay and other service conditions of employees are mooted .
It
is in this background the two-day session of the conference was taken place. The
seminar organized on the first day on "LPG POLICIES AND DEVELOPMENT " was
inaugurated by one of the well-known economist of the country Dr.. Venkitesh
Athreya, Prof.and HOD of Bharathydasn University,Trichi. In his keynote address
he exposed the vested intrest of the imperialist forces in the implementation of
LPG Policies. He also unveiled the inherent and inbuilt crisis in the financial
model pursued by IMF,IBRD,WTO & ADB.(paper presented attached separately)
Com.B.S.Meel ,General Secretary,EEFI,Com.M.Sukumara Pillai ,General
Secretary,KSE Workers Federation participated in the
discussion.Com.K.N.Revindranath,Vice-President, CITU central committee moderated
the seminar and delivered an enlightened speech, co-relating theory and practice
in fighting against the imperialism and for secularism. He explained this with
reference to a number of contexts from the recent 32 days struggle of government
employees of Kerala.
The second day delegate's session was inaugurated by
Com.Pinary Vijayan, former Minister for Electricity and PB member of CPI(M).He
reviled the experience of his discussion with the World Bank in which the Bank
demanded the unbundling and privatisation of KSE Board for any further tranchie
of Loan from them. He totally disagreed with this and hence all the World Bank
projects were stopped. He also added that TNCs have already turned up and in
queue when UDF came to power , to swallow KSEB. He cautioned the employees of
KSEB that this fact and the magnitude of its' danger is not seen properly viewed
by the employees of KSEB and called for united movement against it.
Fraternal organisations ie.KGOA,KSEBWA KSEOF&KSEWF greeted the conference.
After the Presidential address , presentation of, the report by the General
Secretary and Accounts by the Treasurer , discussions on these started.
Presidential address was mainly focussing on the power sector reforms taken p
lace in India and abroad and its miserable failure to deliver the proclaimed
results. The fruit of reform process in power sector was too bitter to the
consumers and employees in California,Orissa,Maharastra, AP etc the presidential
address lamented. General secretaries' report briefed the crisis in the
capitalist system even in this so-called uni-polar world. He out- lined the
impacts of the LPG policies implemented by the BJP Government more vigorously
than the former Cong(i). He narrated the attacks on the T.U / Association
activities and pay and other service conditions of the employees by the present
Antony Government and its Power minister. He also briefed the campaigns and
agitations carried out both independently and united, making earnest efforts for
unity, by the Association, in these circumstances. The orientation of the report
was for a further all- united movement to safeguard the interest of the country,
the industry and the employees.
After proper discussion by the
representatives of the district delegations and reply by the G.S and the
Treasurer, the report and accounts were passed unanimously. The following
resolutions were passed by the conference unanimously .
" Against the power
policy of the Government of Kerala(GOK) calling for united action by the
employees and the people of Kerala.
" Against the anti -working class
measures taken in KSEB including that on the pay and service conditions ,
calling for united action by the employees and the people of Kerala.(this
resolution was passed by the conference with standing ovation and shouting of
slogans)
" Against the measures taken by GOK & KSEB making the distribution
activities unscientific, anti-consumer, anti-employee which makes the incumbency
in distribution wing a punishment.
" Against the power management of GOK
re-introducing load shedding and inviting power cut when power is surplus.
"
Against the unscientific water management policy of GOK.
" Against the
privatisation of public sector especially based on the recently submitted Public
enterprises commission report.
" Against the recent war on Palestine by
Israel
" Against the attack on women by LPG policies and the attack on
working women in KSEB by vigilance wing.
The conference re-elected
P.Parmeswaran as President and K.R.Unnithan as General Secretary .Ayyappan
Pillai is the new Treasurer central committee with 100 members were elected
which includes 30 officers.Com.Pavithran , WCM of EEFI is re-elected as one of
the secretaries and V.Kumarabhadran, another WCM is decided as invitee , as he
is retired.
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