Mangaluru: The employees of the escoms are on the warpath against the central government’s move to privatize electricity distribution to up the efficiency and earnings of the escoms to enable them to invest in and concentrate on the generation of electricity. The Central government has been urging states that have been subsidizing State escoms that lose more than 15% of revenue to poor distribution networks, power theft, or billing inefficiencies to go in for private participation in their distribution networks.
The District Federation of Karnataka Electricity Board Employees Union and associations, staged a protest in front of the MESCOM office at Bejai, Mangaluru on Monday 5 October 2020 in this regard. They wore black bands to highlight the impending death of the escoms. Manjappa, the Senior Vice President of the Engineers’ Association told the gathering that the decision taken by the Central Government was totally erroneous and has gone against the will of the states. He said that a meeting of all state power ministers was called for by the Central Government on July 3, 2020, to discuss amendments to the electricity act at which 11 states and two union territories opposed the move. Despite this the Central Government is planning to go ahead with their privatization moves, he said.
He highlighted the fact that the power ministry has gone ahead and issued a model bid document on September 22, 2020, indicating that the Central Government was keen on the initiative. He said, “Privatization is against the masses, Farmers, and BPL cardholders because electricity would become costlier. Only business houses will be benefited. Everyone knows the mess that privatization of electricity distribution has caused in Delhi and Mumbai”. He said the way to solve the issue is to stop providing electricity to industries at subsidized rates.
The District Federation of Karnataka Electricity Board Employees Union and associations submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Managing Director of MESCOM, Prashanth Kumar Mishra.
