Powercom engineers protest against state govt [TNN, Oct 15, 2010]

Submitted by admin on Sat, 16/10/2010 - 10:44am

Powercom engineers protest against state govt
Sandeep Dua, TNN, Oct 15, 2010, 10.45pm IST

LUDHIANA: The Punjab State Electricity Board Engineers'Association (PSEBEA) staged a protest in front of Powercom office on Ferozepur Road on Friday, against the non-fulfilment of assurances made by Punjab chief minister at the time of unbundling of Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB).

PSEBEA president HS Bedi said they were assured in several meetings before restructuring PSEB that immediately after formal decision of the cabinet on unbundling, a tripartite agreement would be signed to protect the service and working conditions as well to maintain differential payscales of PSEB engineers. It was also assured that means would be devised to guarantee pension and other retirement benefits to the employees, and that Punjab government would stand as a guarantor.

It was also agreed that Powercom would put at least Rs 250 crore in the separate provident fund account to safeguard the workers interest. Erstwhile PSEB had utilized employees provident fund of over Rs 2000 crore against capital works, resulting in no money in employees'account.

Bedi said non-fulfilment of assurances by the state machinery and Powercom management was brought to chief minster Prakash Singh Badal's notice several times. However, no issue has been resolved till date. The state is claiming to become power surplus in coming years without even investing a single penny but question is at what cost? The consumer is all set to face the increase in cost of power, resulting in higher power tariffs, he cautioned.

Bedi further alleged that breaking its promise, the state government handed over 2,640 mw Gidderbaha, 560 mw Goindwal, 1,980 mw Talwandi Saboo and Rajpura thermal plants to private players.

The regime handed over Gidderbaha project to the National Therma Power Plant Corporation (NTPC) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding, ignoring the fact that NTPC is backing out from its commitment to supply power from its cheaper power projects at LARA, Dadri and others. Besides, NTPC did not give any deadline for completion of this project, Bedi added.