Protest Dharna by Punjab Powercom Engineers at Ludhiana

Vinod Kumar Gupta
Friday, 15 October 2010
LUDHIANA: Power engineers of Central Zone staged a Protest Dharna today at Ludhiana against non fulfillment of the assurances given by Chief Minister, Punjab at the time of unbundling of PSEB.

HS Bedi President of PSEB Engineers association said at press conference today that it was assured by the Chief Minister in the meeting held with the Association on April 5 before restructuring of PSEB that immediately after formal decision of the cabinet on unbundling, a tripartite agreement shall be signed to protect the service/working conditions as well to maintain existing differential of pay scales of PSEB engineers vis-à-vis their counterpart Punjab government engineers.

It was also assured that way and means will be devised to guarantee payment of all pensionary and other retirement benefits to employees and Punjab Government shall stand as guarantor. It was agreed that Powercom will put about at least Rs. 250 crore in the separate provident fund account to safeguard the interest of employees. It is pertinent to mention that Erstwhile PSEB had already utilized employees’ provident fund of over Rs. 2000 crore against capital works and there is no money in the Provident Fund account of employees.

Bhupinder Singh General secretary of Association said that the non-fulfillment of assurances by the state machinery and the Powercom management was brought to the notice of Chief Minister twice In second meeting held on August 8 it was decided to constitute a committee headed by Chief Secretary, d with clear directions that all pending issues be resolved in mutual consultations by September 15, however, no issue has been resolved till date.

Padamjit Singh Patron of Association brought in to focus the lopsided policy of the state government to award all planned thermal projects to private companies in the aforesaid meeting and it was promised that 2640MW Gidderbaha plant may be executed under state sector provided Powercom arrange the required funds. Powercom management was asked to tie up funds which it did with Power Finance Corporation. After the whole exercise, the matter is referred to a group of minister. Without waiting for its report, the state government signed an MOU with NTPC in great haste on October 7.

Padamjit said that the state government awarded the project to NTPC through MOU route ignoring the fact that NTPC is backing out from the commitments to supply power from its cheaper power projects at LARA, Dadri etc. Moreover NTPC has not committed any time limits for completion of this project in the MOU
The state is claiming to become power surplus in the coming years without investing even a penny but will become puppet at the hands of private or central sector generators would have the tendency to operate their plants irrespective of the requirements of the State to earn profits at the cost of consumers leading to increase in cost of power resulting in higher tariffs in the coming years