Photo: Lingaraj Panda

ALL EARS: Energy Minister Surya Narayan Patro having a word with V. Gandhi Babu, CEO of Southco, at the second annual AGM of Southco Power Engineer's Association in Berhampur on Saturday.

BERHAMPUR: The engineers working under the Southco, the power distribution company in south Orissa, seem to be a dissatisfied lot.

It came to the fore at the annual general body meeting of the Southco Power Engineers' Association (SPEA) held in the city on Saturday.

State Power Minister Suryanarayan Patro, State general secretary of the CPI and adviser of the association Nityananda Pradhan, the CEO of Southco V.Gandhi Babu attended the meeting as guests.

Mr Patro termed the engineers as the root of success behind the power reforms in the State. He urged them to check power theft to reduce transmission loss.

Mr Pradhan, however, was skeptical about the privatisation of power sector in the State. According to him this has neither served the consumers nor the employees of power sector.

Unhappy

The engineers were not satisfied with their management for employing them in bill collection work most of the time. They wanted the revenue and maintenance sections to be differentiated as when engineers move around collecting money the maintenance work suffers drastically.

According to them the pressure of maintenance is increasing as no recruitment is being made for the posts of lineman and helper, which are key posts. At present they are being appointed on contract and company is not taking liability for the risks taken by them.

President of the SPEA L.M. Bisoi said during last six years no change occurred in their service conditions and no pay revision was done. After retirement the vacant posts of senior engineers are not being filled.

The SPEA members were too critical of Reliance Energy, the parent company of Southco for not investing in maintenance, system improvement and infrastructure development although the number of customers has increased many folds in the last five years. They cited the example of proposed 33 KV power supply ring around the city project which has not been taken up by the company. Had it been taken up it could have solved the power problems in the city.

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