The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) passed a resolution at its meeting in Nagpur on Saturday, demanding the Centre not bring in the Electricity (Amendment) Bill yet again and withdraw the proposal for privatisation and appointment of urban distribution franchisees, considering the larger interest of the energy sector and consumers.
The Federation has said that to make the energy sector strong and self-reliant, expert power engineers should be posted in top management positions in all power corporations of the country. It demanded that the old pension scheme be restored for all power sector employees.
According to AIPEF chairman Shailendra Dubey, who chaired the meeting, delegates from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and host state Maharashtra were present in a larger numbers.
The resolution also stated that in the last few years, the Central government tried to amend the Electricity Act, 2003, through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill. The main objective of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill was to give licences to private houses in the field of electricity distribution and allow them to use the networks of public sector electricity distribution companies.
It further stated that Urban Distribution Franchise was experimented in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and some other provinces but this experiment was a complete failure and the agreements of most of the Urban Distribution Franchises have been cancelled.
{{/usCountry}}It further stated that Urban Distribution Franchise was experimented in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and some other provinces but this experiment was a complete failure and the agreements of most of the Urban Distribution Franchises have been cancelled.
{{/usCountry}}Similarly, the entire electricity distribution sector in Odisha was privatised. This experiment also failed miserably, and all the licences of Reliance Power were cancelled in 2015. But unfortunately, again in 2020, the entire distribution area in Orissa has been given to Tata Power. Despite this, there has been no significant improvement.
“Therefore, the time has come to withdraw these failed experiments of privatization and urban distribution franchise,” Dubey said.
He said that the resolution also stated that it was not appropriate for the Centre in any way to make it mandatory to import coal for the thermal power plants of the states for the last few years despite Coal India Ltd claiming there was no coal shortage in the country.