UTTAR PRADESH  - POWERMEN STAGE DHARNA

In protest against the tabling of the Electricity 2001 in Parliament, National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and engineers organized a nationwide dharna of power employees. On Wednesday, in Lucknow, a dharna was organized at the Shakti Bhawan.

Members of labour union threatened to intensify their agitation in view of the government’s proposed tabling of the electricity Bill 2001 inside Parliament.

Thousands of employees, including engineers allover the country, will sit on dharna a day before the bill will come up for discussion in Parliament, said senior leaders while addressing the gathering at the Shakti Bhawan.

Members demanded that all such efforts with regard to privatisation and decentralisation of the State Electricity Boards should be stopped and to safeguard larger interest of the consumer the government should not press for the Electricity Bill-2001. The consumer was not going to be benefited by all these attempts of privatisation as it would lead to further rise in tariffs and more monopolisation of the distribution of power services, said members of the employees union.

Following the passage of the Bill, the entire nation would be devided into rural and urban sectors and there would be user’s club, consumer forum and franchisee system for distribution of power in rural India and this would lead to emergence of mafia in the power sector, apprehended the employees.

Loss of subsidies for the villages and role of Central Electricity Authority would not be there following the Bill and all the subsidies would be waived off.

At present, there were more than 85,000 villages without electricity and half of them were in Uttar Pradesh. After the Bill, no private company will come forward for rural electrification and villages will bear the maximum brunt, said union leaders.

All the State electricity boards will seize to be functional following the passage of the Bill.

The government’s decision to bring in the Electricity Bill 2001 will terminate all legislations in this regard and Indian Electricity Act 1910, Electricity Supply Act 1948, Electricity Regulatory Commission Act 1998 will cease to be functional.

The dharna was led by senior members of all the union.