Protest against transfer of SE: Lesa engineers threaten strike
13 Jun 2009, TNN

LUCKNOW: Engineers of Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration on Friday threatened of going on a strike in protest against the UP Power
Corporation Limited (UPPCL) decision to transfer senior engineers from the state capital.

As many as three executive engineers and a superintending engineer of Lesa were transferred by chairman-cum-managing director of UPPCL, Navneet Sehgal, on Thursday, a day after vast areas of the state capital plunged into a severe power crisis.

The decision was taken after a meeting of Lesa engineers where it was decided that the engineers would proceed on a strike from Tuesday in case transfer order of the officials are not cancelled.

Zonal secretary, Lesa Abhiyanta Sangh, Ram Prakash said that the management should reconsider its decision. "There are problems but the fault is not totally of the engineers as is being projected,'' he said.

Besides superintending engineer (zone-2), S C Singh, three executive engineers who were given marching orders, included: executive engineer (Indiranagar), Brij Mohan; executive engineer (Thakurganj), Mohammad Firoz and executive engineer (CESS), Pramendra Prabhakar. While Brij Mohan was transferred to Lakhimpur, the other two were attached with Madhyanchal distribution company.

Meanwhile, a team headed by additional managing director, UPPCL, Narendra Bhushan inspected the proposed site for the 220 KV sub-station in Malesamau. The sub-station is proposed to be connected to the Chinhat power station through an underground trench.

Narendra Bhushan is reported to have asked the officials of Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), who also accompanied the team at the sub-station, to speed up the work of trench construction so that load on Chinhat power station can be eased out.

The project is considered to be crucial given the fact that the proposed 220 KV sub-station would ease the burden on Chinhat power station which often trips because of overloading. PCL officials said that the problems of overloading have largely been witnessed in the trans-Gomti areas, like Indiranagar and Gomtinagar