Apseb Staff To Go On Strike Against Recast

Employees of the Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board (APSEB) will observe a 48-hour token strike throughout the state from July 15 to protest against the governments proposed move to restructure or privatise the board.

Chairman of the joint council of action committee of all APSEB unions and associations, S Jangaih, told newspersons yesterday that the decision to strike work was taken unanimously at a recent emergency meeting.

Jangaih said all 74,000 employees of the board would participate in the strike all over the state to protest against it.

Criticising Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who had recently released copies to the press regarding power sector reforms as a prelude to privatising the board, Jangaih alleged that Naidu was hell-bent on privatising the board in the name of reforms with a political motive.

 

C S R Sharma, co-chairman of the committee, criticised certain projections made by the statement with regard to power generation by pointing out that there could not be a demand addition of 8,800 mw by year 2002 as claimed by the Chief Minister. The estimated expenditure of Rs 35,000 crore required at the rate of Rs 4 crore per mw was impossible to achieve, Sharma said.