HT
Engineers: Take us into confidence
BATHINDA

: Punjab State Electricity BATHINDA: Punjab State Electricity Board engineers from Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant, Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant and west zone have held meetings to chalk out a strategy against the Punjab government's move to unbundle the board “without taking the stakeholders into con- fidence“.
The engineers felt that with- out the support of all, restruc- turing will not yield any posi- tive results, but will only push the power sector into a back- ward direction. They said the Engineers' Association favoured meaningful power sector reforms. “One company for carrying out gen- eration, transmission and dis- tribution functions and the sec- ond to carry out trading should be formed for compliance of the Electricity Act, 2003,“ they said.

The Association urged the Chief Minister that the restructured entity should be run by a team of competent professionals.

They also stressed that issues like service conditions of employees and engineers should be addressed.

“The company should start with a clean balance-sheet, with- out which restructuring would be a meaningless exercise.“

The Association urged the Chief Minister to convene an early meeting to discuss the issues in detail before taking any final decision on restruc- turing of PSEB, “failing which the engineers will not accept any unilateral decision and launch an agitation to oppose the move“.