‘Franchisee system being introduced to repay loans’
Manish Sirhindi / Tribune News Service

Panipat, January 17
The Haryana Power Engineers and Workers Joint Action Committee has alleged that the franchisee system is being introduced so that the power utilities can repay the loans.

Addressing a meeting in protest against the state government’s move to hand over the distribution system of Panipat and Gurgaon to private players, RS Dahiya, president of the Haryana Power Engineers Association (HPEA), said the power utilities were misleading the state government about the factual position prevailing in these utilities. As of today, the loan against the power utilities was 7,099 crore and this was likely to touch the figure of 10,000 crore by June, he stated. The power utilities had no funds to repay the loans and thus had been proposing the franchisee system. The money earned by way of franchisee system would then be used to repay the loan, Dahiya added.

The meeting was attended by over 1,600 workers and engineers drawn from all constituent organisations of the Joint Action Committee, including the Haryana Power Engineers Association, HSEB Workers Union and the All-Haryana Power Corporation Workers Union. Dahiya said there was a shortage of 52 per cent staff in power utilities. In case the work was handed over to a franchisee, the private company would have the option to bring back its employees and this would harm the interest of present employees. He alleged that money was being spent on non-productive works rather then bringing about efficiency in the system to curtail losses.

The president of the union said commercial as well as line losses in discoms were increasing due to privatising, outsourcing and contracting policies adopted by the state government. He said due to acute shortage of staff, engineers and workers of power utilities were putting in more than 12 to 14 hours a day in order to reduce the line losses to a considerable extent. He said if vacant posts were filled, privatising, outsourcing, contracting policies were dumped and suggestions of the committee were implemented, the AT&C losses could be reduced further and better services could be provided to the consumers in the state.