Decision to Privatize Uttar Pradesh Discom Deferred till January 2021

Fifteen lakh electricity department employees including junior engineers, sub-divisional officers, executive engineers and superintending engineers who were on a day-long boycott of work today to oppose the proposal of privatisation of power distribution company Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, will return to work.

This follows the culmination of a meeting in which Energy Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Shrikant Sharma, Union Leaders and top officials of the department were present. It was decided that employees and officials of the discom would towards betterment of distribution and customer services.

It was also decided that the distribution would be made corruption free, billing and collection efficiency would be improved and consumer satisfaction would be on top priority. The next meeting to take stock of situation/improvement in various fields, would be held on January 15, 2021, which would be attended by Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma and various stakeholders of related unions.

The district convener of Vidhyut Karamchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti Avdhesh Kumar had earlier said that the central government was bent upon privatising the power sector.

“The privatisation of the power sector remained unsuccessful in Orissa, Delhi, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Ujjain, Gwalior, Bhagalpur, Gaya and Muzaffarpur including other places of the country. Privatisation is against the masses because electricity would become costlier. Only business houses would be benefitted. Almost all associations of engineers would participate in the protest,” Kumar had added.