The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : TNEB contract workers may be regularised, says Veerasamy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 17, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

TNEB contract workers may be regularised, says Veerasamy

Staff Reporter

Announcement will be made after Assembly session

CHENNAI: The manpower shortage faced by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board in rural areas and the growing interest of foreign investors in promoting power plants in the State augur well for the contract workers of the Board, Electricity Minister Arcot N. Veerasamy said on Wednesday.

Noting that it was not appropriate for him to make any announcement when the Assembly was in session, he hinted at the possibility of the State Government considering favourably the case of some 6,000 of 20,000 such workers since they were given bonus. He was addressing a meeting organised by the Labour Progressive Front, the labour wing of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, to mark the merger with it of a few unions representing the contract and permanent employees of the Board.

According to Mr. Veerasamy, given their work experience, the contract workers should emerge as a natural choice when the Board recruited to tide over the shortage of field staff such as helpers and linesmen in rural areas. Furthermore, their services would come in handy when new power projects came up; investors from several countries, including Malaysia, were keen on promoting power projects in the State. Though Tamil Nadu was self-sufficient in power generation and might require an additional capacity of some 1,500 mega watt in the 11th Plan period, it proposed to promote plants for supplying to other States, he said. Selection of the project promoters would be transparent, and the lowest bidder with regard to the Power Purchase Agreement would prevail. The energy so generated would be sold through the Power Trading Corporation, Mr. Veerasamy said. The State Government would come up with an announcement on regularisation of the contract workers after the Assembly session.

Finance Minister K. Anbhazagan said labour should show understanding whenever there was a time lag between announcement and notification, as the process often took time. In the second half of the previous regime, some 600 files had piled up for want of clearance despite the sanction of funds for the proposals contained in them.

LPF president C. Kuppusami spoke.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu