A day after the state’s chief secretary listed why privatisation of the power sector was a must, agitating employees have labelled him a liar.
On Saturday the state’s chief secretary, Manoj Kumar Singh, had said that privatisation would improve service delivery, enhance agricultural productivity, boost rural incomes, and facilitate industrial development.
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Now the Vidyut Karamchari Samyukta Sangharsh Samiti, a union of employees has said that privatisation has failed in Odisha, Delhi and Chandigarh. The union has dubbed it a ‘loot of public property’. A loot that the agitating employees say they will not allow in Uttar Pradesh.
Office bearers of the union said that in Odisha, 17 years after privatisation, the state’s Electricity Regulatory Commission cancelled the licenses of all three Reliance Power companies in 2015 due to inefficiency and massive corruption.
In Chandigarh, the electricity department was making profits and the annual profit was about Rs 200 crore. The assets of Chandigarh Electricity Department worth Rs 22,000 crore were sold for just Rs 871 crores. Annual transmission losses were at eight per cent. The privatisation story was only of a government department being sold to a private company for a pittance.
In Delhi, 1970 employees who were compulsorily retired after Tata Power took over are yet to receive their dues, 19 years after they lost their jobs. The company was spending Rs 137 crores every year to fight cases against 300 employees but was not willing to pay them their dues.
The Sangharsh Samiti said that the electricity workers from these states would soon come to Lucknow to tell the story of their woes before the media.
The statement of the chief secretary that in most advanced states, electricity is in private hands is misleading and unfair.
From April 16, across the state, power department employees will start a massive public outreach programme. They have threatened to boycott work till the privatisation decision is withdrawn.