Lucknow – The decision to privatize Purvanchal and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam by the Uttar Pradesh government in the capital Lucknow is against the concept of welfare state and in the future, farmers, labourers, small-medium traders and common citizens will be forced to buy very expensive electricity. Will have to. Therefore, the government should immediately withdraw this anti-people decision. This demand was raised today in a statement issued to the press by the State Committee of All India People's Front.
Dinkar Kapoor, state organization general secretary of All India People's Front, said that in the constitution adopted after independence, the role of the state was as a welfare state. In which it was the responsibility of the government to provide basic areas like education, health, employment, roads, electricity, water to the common citizens. Now the government is retreating from this. Handing over a sector like electricity to the private sector would wreak havoc on the common people already suffering from the brunt of inflation.
He said that all the experiments in electricity privatization across the country have proved unsuccessful. The government had to withdraw the policy of electricity privatization in Orissa. The CAG report itself revealed that there was a scam worth crores of rupees in the privatization of Torrent Power in Agra and loss of revenue to the state government. Due to privatization in Maharashtra and mainly in Mumbai, the common man is being forced to buy very expensive electricity and its rate also varies according to different times.
He said that in fact the policies of the government are responsible for the losses being incurred by the electricity department in the state. The government does thermal banking from its generating houses which generate cheap electricity and at the same time electricity is purchased from corporate houses at very expensive prices. The condition of misuse of electricity is such that if people go to the Secretariat itself, huge electricity expenditure will be seen in the ACs and various plants running there. A major part of the loss being reported today is due to arrears of electricity bills in government departments. If the government returns the same then the outstanding amount will reduce significantly.
He said that the government's statement that employee interests will not be affected due to privatization is completely wrong. It is clear that after privatization, there will be retrenchment of engineers and employees on a large scale and knowing this, the government has talked about VRS. The biggest hit will fall on the contract laborers working in these distribution corporations who will be fired from their jobs and no social security will be ensured to them.
He said that privatization of electricity is actually a part of the Electricity Amendment Act 2022 pending in the Parliament. In which the government has abolished the process of cross subsidy and subsidy. Under which the cheap electricity available to farmers for irrigation and agricultural work will end. He has appealed to all the opposition parties, farmers organizations, labor and employee organizations and distinguished citizens of the state to stand against this privatization and also AIPF will hold public dialogue against privatization.
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