LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) staff on Saturday disconnected electricity supply of a number of government departments and guest houses, including the VVIP guest house here, for non-payment of electricity dues.

The move is aimed at mounting pressure on the state government to roll back its decision of handing over power distribution in five cities, Lucknow, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Meerut and Moradabad, to private franchisees.

The disconnection drive created a chaos all around with the estate department officials desperately calling senior UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) counterparts requesting them to order restoration of power supply.

With LESA insisting on payment of arrears before it reconnected the supply lines, all such guest houses and departments continued on run on generators till late night. “There is a lot of problem since all important people stay here and we cannot run ACs on generators,” a receptionist at the VVIP Guest House said.

Among the places where power supply was disconnected were New Vidhayak Niwas (Rs 11.65 lakh), Darul Shafa (Rs 5.99 crore), Indira Bhawan (Rs 1.74 crore), Jawahar Bhawan (Rs 1.81 crore), State Guest House (Rs 8.92 lakh), VVIP Guest House (Rs 2.06 crore), VIP Guest House (Rs 3.02 crore), State Guest House, Vikramaditya Marg (Rs 58.22 lakh.) Jawahar Bhawan and Indira Bhawan together house offices of around 60 government departments.

Superintending engineers, LESA, AP Shukla, said the disconnections made on Saturday were within rules and as per the UP Power Corporation Ltd management’s directions whereby the LESA had been asked to disconnect power supply of government departments, barring hospitals, which were big defaulters of power dues. “We have not received dues against disconnected connections so far,” he said.

Estate Officer, Yogesh Kumar Shukla, however said, that the estate department (it takes care of government colonies and guest houses etc) had no current arrears pending against it.

“We have paid Rs 22 crore bills for the current financial year,” he said. The old arrears had been pending since 2012 and it, he added, might take some time to settle the same.

Earlier, the power employees, under Vidut Karmchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti, a joint forum of various power employees and engineers’ associations, gathered at the Field Hostel before embarking on the disconnection drive beginning with the Meerabai Road VIP guest house. They carried defaulters’ lists with them.

“We disconnected power supply to government departments to make a point that on one hand the government has decided to privatize the power distribution in five cities in the name of reducing losses etc, on the other government departments have arrears of Rs 10,800 crore pending against them increasing the UPPCL’s losses,” Sangharsh Samiti leader Shailendra Dubey said.

The state’s power men have been up in arms since the cabinet last week gave its nod to the proposal for introduction of power distribution franchisee system like in Agra.

On Friday, they boycotted the UPPCL’s chairman’s statewide video conference.

They have announced a full day work boycott on March 27 after which they might take a call on a statewide indefinite strike if their demand was not met.

The then Mayawati government had handed over power distribution of Agra to the Torrent Power, a private firm in 2010, for a period of 25 years ignoring protests.

At an emergency meeting late in the night, power employees decided not to connect even a single government department connection that were disconnected for non-payment of electricity dues “unless arrears were cleared.”

The Sangharsh Samiti held the meeting after UPPCL management allegedly asked engineers to restore supply of Darul Safa, the supply of which was snapped on Saturday.

“All connections have been snapped as per rules and if we are forced to connect even a single connection, we will stop disconnecting supply of small and poor consumers, too, despite dues against them,” said Shailendra Dubey. The disconnection drive, he said would continue as per the decision taken at the emergency meeting.