Recast discoms, demand engineers
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Panipat, March 20
In its campaign against the franchisee system, the Haryana Power Engineers Association has called upon the state government to undertake the restructuring of discoms instead of introducing the franchisee system in Panipat and Gurgaon. President of the association RS Dahiya said as per government directives, the discoms were supposed to restructure themselves by March 31, 2006.

However, even though four years had lapsed, the restructuring process had not been completed, which had resulted in reduction of working staff up to 48 per cent in the discoms. He claimed that this had also caused widespread discontent among consumers as the services had been affected to a great extent.

Claiming that the franchisee system was not needed, Dahiya said the authorities should fill the posts lying vacant in the discoms and strengthen the workforce at the subdivision level so that the employees could work towards reducing line losses and engage in the recovery of the defaulting amount for improving the financial health of the discoms.

He said the borrowing capital loan of both discoms had increased manifold, whereas the capacity to repay the loan had gone down in the present set-up. He said this might have been the main reason that the authorities had decided to go ahead with the franchisee system.

The president of the association said till date the discoms had suffered losses up to Rs 4,099 crore and there was a monthly deficit of over Rs 500 crore. The capital loan was Rs 10,836 crore, while the average and commercial losses were 35 per cent in the UHBVN and 32 per cent in the DHBVN. He lamented that the management of both discoms depended on advisers and consultants, but never took into confidence government engineers and workers working with them.