Move to franchise power distribution opposed
Sonika Bhatia
Tribune News Service

Gurgaon, January 18
Under the banner of Haryana Power Engineers and Workers Joint Action Committee, a protest rally was held outside Gurgaon Circle Office here recently. They raised slogans against the Nigam’s management and the Haryana Government to protest against the government’s move to franchise the distribution system of Gurgaon and Panipat districts.

The rally gwarned that if the government went ahead with the move, the whole transmission and distribution system in the state would be brought to a grinding halt and employees of the franchisees would at no cost be allowed to enter any of the offices of the nigams. The rally was presided over by RS Dahiya, president, Haryana power Engineers’ Association, and was organised under the leadership of Subhash Lamba, a senior member of the Joint Action Committee.

Addressing the mammoth rally, where engineers & workers from Gurgaon, Sohna & Mewat divisions took part, the leaders demanded, among other things, the removal of all pay anomalies, service to kin of all employees who died on duty, extending this facility to all contractual workers, doing away with out-sourcing of services and immediate filling of 30000 posts lying vacant. All speakers deplored the negative attitude of the nigam managements and the government in this regard.

JAC leaders affirmed that at the time of re-organization of the HSEB in 1998, the total losses in UHBVN were only Rs. 400 crore which now had swelled to more than Rs. 2700 crores mainly due to arbitrary and feudal attitude of the management which included outsourcing of even the core areas of operation.

They claimed the government was trying to shield such officers and trying to franchise two such districts which were actually earning revenue for the respective nigams and, to some extent, making up the losses of other districts.

All engineers and workers expressed solidarity with the joint action committee and vowed to step up the agitation if the government did not respond to the JAC suggestions.