Up electricity privatization: The Electricity Employees Joint Conflict Committee, Uttar Pradesh has appealed to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath not to intervene and not allow the use of failed power privatization in other parts of the country on the poor people of Uttar Pradesh. Electricity workers continued their protest against privatization on the 240th consecutive day today.
The officials of the Sangharsh Samiti appreciated Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, saying that under his guidance power workers have supplied record power and brought line losses below the national standard. Even during Mahakumbh, the electricity workers worked tirelessly and did not allow any disruption in the power supply even for a moment in this huge event which lasted for 65 days. Even during the scorching heat, the power workers tried to maintain better power supply continuously.
Use of privatization a failed use
The Sangharsh Samiti stressed that the use of privatization in the electricity sector has proved to be a failed experiment. Giving examples, he said that the first power distribution was privatized in Odisha in 1999, but this experiment failed within a year in the most industrial and commercial sector of the state. American company AES escaped after leaving work after a year and refused to reconstruct the broken power structure during the Mahachakravat. Reliance Power continued to work in the other three power distribution corporations, but in February 2015, the Electricity Regulatory Commission of Odisha also canceled all three licenses of Reliance Power due to extremely poor performance. This was the second failure in Odisha.
The committee further stated that in June 2020 during the Korona period, the license of the four power distribution corporations of Odisha was given to Tata Power. But on July 15 this month, the Electricity Regulatory Commission of Odisha has issued notice to the four Tata companies due to extremely poor performance and issued a public hearing order on their performance. This is the third failure of privatization in Odisha. It is noteworthy that the Bharatiya Janata Party in Odisha itself is continuously agitating against Tata Power.
The Sangharsh Samiti also stated that privatization was used in the name of urban distribution franchise in the neighboring state of Bihar, which was canceled by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar a year after a year. Similarly, failed experiments of privatization have been canceled in Aurangabad, Jalgaon, Nagpur and Ranchi and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand in Maharashtra.
Complaints of farmers and domestic consumers in Greater Noida
The committee also cited the experiences of Greater Noida and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, where the use of privatization has failed. Complaints of farmers and domestic consumers are coming up in Greater Noida, and the Uttar Pradesh government itself is fighting a lawsuit in the Hon’ble Supreme Court to revoke the license of a private company. Torrent Power Company Urban is openly violating the agreement of distribution franchise in Agra.
The Sangharsh Samiti appealed to the Chief Minister that the private company works for profits, and Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam and 42 districts under Dakshinchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam resides very poor people. Therefore, this failed experiment of privatization in the widespread interest of the state and general public should not be implemented in Uttar Pradesh and it should be canceled immediately.
Significantly, today 8 months of the movement of electricity workers of Uttar Pradesh have been completed. On the 240th day of the agitation today, electricity workers on all the districts and projects of the state demanded a protest meeting and demanded to revoke the decision of privatization.
