New Delhi, Sept 19 (KNN) The All India Power Engineers Federation in a meeting held in Srinagar on Sunday decided to hold demonstrations in Delhi on November 23 to protest against the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022.

AIPEF has also threatened that the electricity sector workers will go on strike if the government makes any unilateral effort to pass the bill in Parliament, AIPEF said in a statement.

Over 50 delegates mainly from Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Delhi, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Damodar Valley Corporation participated in the meeting.

Speaking after the meeting, AIPEF chairman Shailendra Dubey said, the Electricity (Amendment) 2022 is anti-people and anti-employee. "We will have to come on the road and one has to be ready for a nationwide strike in protest against any unilateral action of the Central Government.

“Private companies will be given the right to supply electricity using the network of government discoms. They will make a profit by using the network of government companies by giving electricity only to profitable sectors i.e. industrial and commercial consumers. Only the loss-making poor domestic consumers and farmers will be left with the government power distribution companies,” he said.

Dubey further added that naturally, the government power distribution companies will become financially poor and after that the government, the network of government power distribution companies will also pay the private companies at a penny price.

The Electricity Amendment Bill 2022 which seeks to create competition in the power distribution sector by providing consumers with options to choose between multiple services providers in an area, was introduced in Lok Sabha on August 8, this year, and was referred for scrutiny to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy on the same day.

The federation in the meeting also decided to organise a public awareness campaign by mobilizing electricity employees and common electricity consumers through Electricity Revolution Yatras.  (KNN Bureau)