PUNE: Over one lakh employees of State-owned power utilities and around 15 lakh employees from across the country will join a nationwide two-day strike from January 8 against the Indian Electricity (amendment) Bill 2018, enabling privatisation of the power distribution.
“Around 15 lakh members of National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers (NCCOEEE) will strike, if the government takes a unilateral decision of bifurcating the existing distribution power supply system,” Shailendra Dubey, Co-Convener, NCCOEEE and Chairman, All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) told Sakal Times on Saturday.
He was in the city for a meeting organised by the federation. “The meeting held in the city has termed the changes proposed in the Electricity Act 2003 as a matter of serious concern as this will concentrate all power in the electricity sector in the hands of the Central government. It will eventually lead to complete privatisation of power distribution. AIPEF Federal Executive, through a resolution, has warned against unilateral rushing through with the proposed amendment bill in Parliament, which will force 1.5 million power employees and engineers to go on the lightning strike on the day the Bill is placed in Parliament,” Dubey said.
“A notice for the strike has already been given to the government. No further notice will be given. If the government remains adamant, future course of action would follow,” he said.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill - which is meant to amend the Electricity Act, 2003 - seeks to bifurcate the distribution function of the power sector into carriage (infrastructure) and the actual sale of electricity (content) to consumers. It proposes that a government company shall lay down the wires or the distribution network that carries the electricity up to the consumer, while private companies will do the actual selling of the power.
The Bill also introduces multiple supply licensees who would be supplying electricity, so they would be competing over selling the power. But one of the supply licensees has to be a government-owned licensee, presumably to cater to the loss-making segments of consumers, such as rural households and farmers.
“The Electricity (Amendment) Bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament in this winter session and Power Minister RK Singh is bent on pushing it through,” Dubey said.
Power employees have been opposing the Bill since it was first introduced. The latest 2018 avatar of the Bill introduces some other changes as well, such as the state-wise phasing out of subsidy and cross-subsidy within three years, said Dubey.
“This Bill is anti-people because the burden of increased prices after the distribution is privatised will be passed on to the consumers.”
The Electricity Act, 2003 had dismantled the State Electricity Boards (SEBs), and replaced them with three separate entities catering to generation, transmission and distribution. The 2003 Act was following the World Bank model of ‘unbundling’ of the power sector, so as to allow private players into the safer and more profitable aspects of generation.
“The Act also brought in de-licensing for thermal power generation, to order to make it even easier for the private players. This meant any private party could set up a thermal power plant, without requiring to obtain a licence first. As a result, a large number of private companies entered power generation,” he elaborated.
AIPEF said that when most of State DISCOMS of country are in financial distress, this is not the time or occasion to introduce changes by way of separating supply and distribution functions. It will make financial crisis even worse.
AIPEF Federal Executive meeting was attended by delegates of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, UP, Punjab, Delhi and several other states. AIPEF office-bearers Shailendra Dubey, P Rathnakar Rao, Padamjit Singh, K Ashok Rao, Sunil Jagtap, Sanjay Thakur and others mainly addressed the federal executive meeting.
