The Hindu : New Delhi News : Power sector agitation takes a political turn

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Power sector agitation takes a political turn

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, NOV. 16. The Delhi Government's decision to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) against some trade union leaders in the power sector does not augur well for power sector reforms. This coupled with lodging of police complaints against certain employees of the private distribution companies under ESMA will only lead to ill-will and generate strains in industrial relations that so far have been smooth and peaceful.

The unions of the three private distribution companies have been up in arms against what they describe as "dictatorial'' attitude of the companies and harassment of the employees. The unions have already indicated their intention to step up their agitation and have charged the Delhi Government and the companies with violating the tripartite agreement inked at the time of privatisation of the power sector. What could contribute further to the deterioration in the industrial relations is the decision to lodge police complaints under ESMA against the group leader by the union leader, Kuldeep Kumar, who is understood to have close to the group led by the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president, Ram Babu Sharma. This has given a political twist to the whole agitation as the rival faction has alleged that people close to them were being targeted at the instance of the some higher ups in the Delhi Government in order to put pressure on them.

Officials have been somewhat taken aback by the "knee-jerk'' reaction of the Delhi Government. The BSES run areas had suffered long duration power cuts on November 11. An inquiry revealed that this had been done deliberately by a section of employees who were out to sabotage the smooth flow of power on the occasion of Diwali and Id. However, the inquiry had still not identified the culprits individually and that is the reason why a general police complaint was lodged under ESMA without naming anyone. "The Government has been very quick to act against the employees on the plea of the private company and has gone out of way to lodge a complaint. However, during the summer months when the consumers were making hue and cry about the poor power situation in BSES run areas, the Government hardly did anything except for calling meetings and holding talks. Despite repeated pleas of wrong doing on metering and billing front, the Government has still lodge a complaint with the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) against any of the private companies despite being a 49 per cent stake holder in the joint venture,'' a senior official remarked.

In fact, what has been done during the last four months is to ensure that all the roadblocks in the path of the private companies on various fronts are clinically removed and that is the reason why the Chief Secretary, S. Regunathan, continues to hold the additional charge of Principal Secretary (Power).

The decisions regarding "benefits'' the private sector companies and the raw deal to the employees of the three discoms is slowly turning into a political battle between the warring factions within the Delhi Congress. The rival group is gearing up for a prolonged fight in view of the Government's move to target union leaders close to them. It is understood that DPCC president along with some other leaders are planning to raise the matter with the party high command. "The party will not sit quietly if any tariff hike is undertaken to compensate the private companies. We will take up the matter with the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and seek her intervention to put an end to the continued victimisation of employees and also stop attempts to retrench a large number of them under some excuse or the other,'' a senior party leader remarked.

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