Farmers, staff on warpath over PSEB unbundling
To hold protest rallies from December 7
Ravi Dhaliwal

Bathinda, November 30
The issue pertaining to the unbundling of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB), considered to be the backbone of this agrarian state, is threatening to snowball into a major controversy with various farmers and employees unions affiliated to different trade unions calling for a series of protest rallies in Patiala from December 7 to 10.

These unions, which include BKU (Sidhupur), PSEB Employees Federation (AITUC), BKU (Dakhonda) and PSEB Technical Services Union, have also planned a total strike at the PSEB headquarters on December 10.

The issue has generated much heat with various farmers’ unions, allegedly backed by PSEB trade unions, holding regular protest demonstrations across the state in an attempt to “make the government see reason and stop the unbundling of the board.”

Sources reveal that the state government has little option except to comply with the directions of the Central Electricity Act, 2003, which calls for all state governments to unbundle their power utilities into different units for transmission, generation and distribution purposes.

Protests have already been witnessed at all the five zonal headquarters at the border zone, Amritsar; central zone, Ludhiana; Jalandhar zone, south zone, Patiala; and west zone, Bathinda.

BKU (Sidhupur) activists will be staging a protest rally at the PSEB head office on December 7. This will be followed by rallies by PSEB Employees Federation (AITUC) and BKU (Dakhonda) on December 8 and 9, respectively.

The PSEB Engineers Association is also vehemently protesting the unbundling of the power entity by saying that “once the unbundled private players step in, power tariff will rise drastically”. The power board had to be unbundled in 2003 itself but the Punjab government, led by different political dispensations, managed to get repeated extensions from the Central government. The last extension, granted by the Union Power Ministry on September 4, expires on December 15.

Sources disclosed that fearing a backlash from farmers, who may not get free power once the board is unbundled, the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was trying to do a balancing act between farmers’ unions and compliance with the Central Electricity Act, 2003. The issue has become so sensitive that citing ‘conduct violations’, no power board official is willing to express himself.

A spokesman of the PSEB Engineers’ Association said, “The government should not unbundle the PSEB as it would lead to disastrous consequences. The Electricity Act, 2003, is deliberately being misinterpreted by certain people for their own vested interests. Nowhere in the Act has it been written that it was mandatory for a state government to unbundle its power entity. As has been done in Kerala, Punjab too can keep the PSEB as an integrated structure.”

Critics of the unbundling process also cite the recent judgement of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity, the highest dispute redressal forum for electricity laws, which says that it is not mandatory for state governments to unbundle power boards into separate companies.