Power men across UP strike work against government's privatization bid

Power employees across Uttar Pradesh struck work on Tuesday to protest against the state government's decision to privatize electricity in Varanasi, Lucknow, Meerut, Gorakhpur and Moradabad.

Unions of the power employees also warned the state government that after this token one-day strike, they will be forced to go for a longer agitation in case there was no immediate roll back on the decision.

The strike called by the Vidyut Karmachari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti saw engineers and employees abstaining from work throughout the day.

A spokesman of the association said that normal work will resume from Wednesday but on April 9, all power men, engineers will go on a three day strike. Protests and demonstrations would be held at all district headquarters and project offices during this three-day protest, it was announced.

Irate power employees accused the state government of playing in the hands of the corporates and of not doing enough to mitigate the problems.

"There have been no recruitment for the last one year and despite the constraints. we have worked hard to ensure hassle-free electricity supply," a spokesman said.

Association General Secretary Ashok Kumar said that be it revenue collection or plugging in line losses, the government power officials and employees have been working very hard to improve the situation.

"Despite this, if the state government wants to privatize these two sections, we will not let this happen," he said.

The power employees also said that other than directly affecting them, privatization will also punch in a hole in common man's budget as the power tariff would also witness a steep hike.

Employee associations have also warned the state government against any punitive action against them like arresting them and said this if this happened, it would be responsible any further escalation of matters.

Protests were witnessed outside the gates of the Pipri, Panki, Obra, Aanpara, Harduaganj and Parischa power plants and Power Department offices at Lucknow, Mirzapur, Faizabad, Ghaziabad, Noida, Meerut, Saharanpur, Jhansi, Banda, Allahabad, Agra, Kanpur, Aligarh, Bareily and Moradabad.

--IANS

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