Engineers will oppose the privatization of Electricity Distribution Corporation, accused the management of misleading

Lucknow, 27 November (HS). The Central Executive of Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Council Engineers Association decided to wage a decisive struggle against the privatization of Varanasi and Agra Electricity Distribution Corporations. Describing the Power Corporation management’s propaganda of privatizing in the name of losses as misleading, the Engineers’ Association said that the Electrical Engineers are always ready to fully cooperate with the management for improvement, but the Engineers’ Association will not accept any form of privatization.

Describing Power Corporation’s statement regarding service conditions as misleading, the Engineers Association said that 10411 employees are working in Agra Discom and 17189 in Varanasi. Once these corporations are privatized, there will be a total surplus of 27600 employees who will have to face retrenchment. 1523 posts of Engineer Cadre will be abolished in these two corporations. Therefore, 1523 assistant engineers will lose their jobs. With the abolition of the posts of 7 Chief Engineers Level-1, 33 Chief Engineers Level-2, 144 Superintending Engineers and 507 Executive Engineers, these engineers will be demoted. There is a provision in Section 133(2) of the Electricity Act-2003 that the service conditions of engineers cannot be reduced by any transfer scheme in future. This proposal of privatization is completely reducing the service conditions of the engineers, which is a direct violation of the Electricity Act-2003 and is not acceptable in any way.

The Central Executive of Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Council Engineers Association has accused the Power Corporation Management of misleading by giving wrong figures in the name of losses and has expressed the resolve that the electrical engineers will never accept any form of privatization and the electricity distribution system of the state will We will strongly oppose, taking all democratic steps, the attempt of the management to hand over the management to private hands. The Engineers Union has expressed its resolve to wage a decisive struggle against privatization along with the Electricity Employees Joint Struggle Committee, Uttar Pradesh and has called upon all the engineers of the state to be ready for this.

In the Central Executive meeting held on Wednesday, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Ayodhya, Prayagraj, Meerut, Saharanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Bareilly, Azamgarh, Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Noida, Aligarh, Anpara, Obra, Harduaganj, Banda, Kanpur, Jhansi, Sitapur etc. Hundreds of officials and members from areas and projects were present.