Power sector employees, engineers protest against Electricity Amendment Bill: AIPEF – EQ Mag Pro
After introducing the Bill, amid protests by the Opposition members in the Lok Sabha, R K Singh urged Speaker Om Birla to refer it to a parliamentary standing committee for wider consultations.
Lakhs of power sector employees and engineers across the country stopped work and held demonstrations in protest against the Electricity Amendment Bill 2022, introduced in Lok Sabha by Union minister R K Singh Monday, the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) said.
“On the call of the National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers, lakhs of electricity employees and engineers across the country stopped work and demonstrated vigorously,” AIPEF said in a statement.
After introducing the Bill, amid protests by the Opposition members in the Lok Sabha, R K Singh urged Speaker Om Birla to refer it to a parliamentary standing committee for wider consultations.
The AIPEF is protesting against the bill saying that it will end all subsidies to power consumers, which would affect commoners especially farmers and the downtrodden.
Shailendra Dubey, chairman, AIPEF, said the Bill has been introduced in the Parliament “in an undemocratic manner with a view to complete privatisation of the energy sector”.
According to the power engineers’ body, the central government in a letter to the United Kisan Morcha last year had promised that the Bill would not be introduced in the Parliament without having detailed talks with the farmers and other stakeholders.
The central government has not held any talks with the biggest stakeholders, the consumers and representatives of power sector employees, till date, it alleged. Due to this unilateral action of the central government, there is a lot of anger among the employees, it said.
AIPEF pointed out that there is a provision in the Bill that licences will be given to more than one distribution companies in the same area. New distribution companies from the private sector will supply electricity using the public sector network, it stated.
There is also a provision in the bill that the ‘universal power supply obligation’ to provide electricity to all categories of consumers will only be applicable on government companies, while private sector suppliers will earn profit by giving electricity only to profitable industrial and commercial consumers as per their wish, it said.
It also pointed out that maintaining the distribution network will be the responsibility of government companies. In this way private companies will earn profit by paying only some wheeling charges. As a result, government companies will become financially insolvent, it argued.
According to the bill, subsidies and cross subsidies will be abolished so that the full cost of electricity can be recovered from all categories of consumers, AIPEF said.
If a pumping set of 7.5 horse power is run for six hours, the farmer will have to pay a bill of Rs 10,000 to 12,000 per month. The same will be the case with the common domestic consumers as well. Thus, this bill is neither in the interest of the general public nor in the interest of the employees, the engineers’ body said.
AIPEF spokesperson V K Gupta said that quest for profit and greater commercial orientation seem to be the only aim of the central government.
He said that on Monday workers at all power generation houses across the country left their work and started demonstrations. Protests were held at Hyderabad, Chennai, Trivandrum, Bangalore, Vijayawada, Lucknow, Patiala, Dehradun, Shimla, Jammu, Srinagar, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Vadodara, Raipur, Jabalpur, Bhopal, Ranchi, Guwahati, Shillong, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur.
He said that through this bill, the central government is going to amend the Electricity Act 2003, which is going to have far-reaching regressive effects on electricity employees as well as consumers.
Source: PTI
