Power Engineers To Protest Against Privatisation Of Discoms On February 3

Power sector engineers across the nation are all set to protest against the central government's decision to privatise distribution companies on February 3.

All India Power Engineers' Federation spokesperson V K Gupta in a statement said, "Power engineers across the country shall resort to token work boycott and hold protest meetings on February 3 against privatisation policies of the Government of India."

The AIPEF Chairman Shailendra Dubey, in a letter to the Prime Minister, stated that the power engineers are disappointed with the Centre's move to privatise the power sector through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and Standard Bidding Document for total privatisation of distribution of electricity.

Dubey said the power engineers would be protesting because of the conversion of private monopoly to public monopoly. "Privatisation was also slowly destroying the public sector across the country while giving huge benefits to selected corporates," added Dubey.

He also pointed out that privatisation and targeted benefits to chosen corporates are the root cause of the ongoing farmer protests, The New Indian Express reported.

The AIPEF also expressed solidarity to struggling organisations of peasants, whose main demand is the withdrawal of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

Some of the other demands are scrapping of electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020 & standard bidding document for total privatisation of distribution of electricity and reintegrating all power utilities in states with functioning components of generation, transmission, and distribution.

The AIPEF also said that the current form of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill is not acceptable, adding that before going for more amendments in the sector of electricity, the government should constitute an expert committee to review the result of the "so-called" reforms done in the last 25 years, which has landed a lot of discoms in financial crisis.