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Kumaramangalam blasts striking power sector workers

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

With the five-day old strike by Uttar Pradesh Electricity Board workers showing little sign of ending, the central government is gearing up to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

It is seeing to it that the northern grid, which supplies power to Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, continues to generate power at the same frequency, and that the transmission and distribution continue unabated.

Special secretary A H Jung, in the ministry of power, said to prevent a breakdown, it was necessary to ensure the generation at a particular frequency. "We have been able to ensure that this frequency is maintained and that the northern grid requirements are being met," he said.

The northern grid peak load is 17,800 mw. "We have been able to generate 16,300 mw, hence the gap is only 1,500 between peak demand and supply," he added.

Addressing the media, Power Minister P R Kumaramangalam said the demand of the central public sector industrial units were also being met all across northern India and Uttar Pradesh.

Despite reports from UP, where residents have complained of having been without electricity for hours on end, the minister insisted that the state's requirements were being met. "Uttar Pradesh has a need for 2300 mw, which is being met through a mixture of thermal and hydel power," Kumaramangalam said.

Both the National Thermal Power Corporation and the National Hydro Power Corporation were functioning properly, he added.

Asked how the demand could be met with the workers striking and many power generating units not functioning, the minister replied that earlier, most of the units invariably worked at only 50 to 80 per cent of their capacity. "Now, all that we have done is to generate power not just at 100 per cent but even at 101 per cent in some units, thus we are able to meet all the state's requirements," he said.

He added that the generation capacity for Uttar Pradesh was 3000 mw, which was never realised earlier.

The minister insisted that the government was not going to back down. "This whole battle is for no other reason than that of a mafia lobby that has a vested interest in the old way of doing things. We will not buckle to them," he declared.

"I would like to add that today, about 600 engineers have returned to work," he said. Moreover, 66 employees had also been dismissed till yesterday. "We don't know if the Uttar Pradesh government has dismissed any more people today," he added.

The minister dismissed reports of senior officers and engineers joining the strike. "The engineers have requested police protection when they go to work from the striking workers and we have provided the same," he replied.

He said he had held talks with the striking workers and found that they had no reason for opposing the splintering of the UP Electricity Board into three divisions -- for generation, transmission, and distribution respectively.

"Can you believe it when I say that UPEB used to actually be able to collect funds only for 43 per cent of the total power generated, with most of the remaining power being stolen during transmission and distribution? How can any company survive such low collections?" he asked.

Kumaramangalam said because of the low collections, the UPEB was forced to raise the tariffs. "This means that the average consumer and the tax payer is paying more and subsidising theft and loss incurred by the UPEB. Why should we charge the common man extra when we can run the entire unit more efficiently by splitting it into three?" he said.

The minister pointed out that the decision to split all the states' electricity boards into three divisions was taken way back in 1996 by a government sub-committee that was headed by former Congress leader Sharad Pawar and included West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

He also added that UP was not the first state to go in for reforming the electricity board. "Let us be very clear about this. Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Orissa have already carried out restructuring of their respective electricity boards. In Orissa, there are already three divisions in existence and more states, notably Karnataka, have already evinced interest in carrying out such reforms," he added.

However, the power minister added that one reason the present strike in Uttar Pradesh was of some importance was because of the political influence of Uttar Pradesh, which sends the largest bloc of members to Parliament and has given the maximum number of prime ministers of India.

Kumaramangalam said the strikers had no specific reason for the strike but their ideology. "The minister concerned in Uttar Pradesh has assured the strikers that no employee will be dismissed due to the restructuring and that their jobs will be guaranteed by statutory provisions. Yet, the strikers say they are opposing the restructuring because they fear that by splitting it up, the government is paving the way for the UPEB's privatisation in the future. So in the present, the people are being put to trouble," he said.

However, the power minister did not specifically state whether or not the government might in future put up the restructured electricity board for privatisation.

The minister and his officials insisted that there was no threat by the workers of the other northern grid states to go on strike to express sympathy with the UP workers. "We have heard many such reports, including one that the army has been called in to man the power stations in Uttar Pradesh. All these reports are not true," he said.

The minister said states that went in for reforms would be given a helping hand but said there was no across-the-board scheme but one that would be tailor-made for each state.

While the government refused to see the Uttar Pradesh case as one that tested the Bharatiya Janata Party's nerve and commitment to implementing tough decisions and difficult reforms, the public and media are certainly seeing it as such.

Officials in the power ministry felt the government had not presented its case properly to the UPEB employees, neither had it been firm in the initial stages. An official felt the initiative now was with the striking workers because the government had been a bit slow at the beginning.

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