The Power Employees and Engineers from across the country today held a rally at Jantar Mantar in protest against the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2014 and Privatisation today. The different unions unanimously decided to observe a day national strike throughout the country during the monsoon session of the parliament and date in this regard will be announced in June 2018. They also opposed privatisation of power sector in UP by way of a franchisee and extended full support to the National Co-ordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers (NCCOEEE).
While the senior leader of the AIPEF, Padamjit Singh said before the discussion of the bill in the parliament, the government must ensure 100 percent population must be given access to electricity, for which ministry of power has set December 2019 as a target. In addition to it, all power utilities must be brought to good financial health and the gap between average cost of supply and average revenue must be bridged. Presently actual cost of supply exceeds actual revenue receipt by about 65 paise per unit.
“The object of the proposed bill is to create an avenue for private houses of making business in power sector without any investment. The splitting of distribution business into carriage and content will create such scope of business with utilisation of network set up by public exchequer. In another way, we can say that the method is a cost to the public for a profit of private business community, said the chairman of the AIPEF, Shailendra Dubey.
He said that the AIPEF, All India Power Diploma Engineers Federation, All India Federation Of Electricity Employees(AITUC), Electricity Employees Federation Of India(CITU), Indian National Federation Of Electricity Employees(INTUC), All India Power Mens Federation(AIPMF) and several other unions of state level are constituent of NCCOEEE participated in the rally.
Others who addressed the rally include K O Habib, PN Choudhury, Rathnakar Rao, Tapan Sinha, Samar Sinha, Subhash Lamba, Ramesh Sharma, Ratna Smapati, Padamjit Singh, Shalindera Dubey and Kuldeep Khanna.