Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 14: Power Employees and Engineers Coordination Committee (PEECC) Convenor Jammu and general secretary JKEEGA, Sachin Tickoo today demanded that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2021 must be put in the public domain before starting the discussion on it in Parliament.
The Bill is not available on the Power Ministry website. He said Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021 is included in the list of 20 new bills to be placed in the current Budget Session of Parliament. Now, the Union Power Minister is to hold a video conference on February 17, with Power secretaries of the states and CMDs of the Discoms to discuss the proposed amendments in Electricity Act, 2003.
All India Power Engineers Federation has threatened a lightning strike against any unilateral move to rush through the Bill in Parliament. AIPEF national executive meeting has been called on February 27 at Mumbai which will decide future agitational course of action. Shailendra Dubey, spokesman said all Power engineers across the country will go for nationwide struggle along with 1.5 million Power employees against Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021. In its letter to the Prime Minister it has mentioned that this is a short cut and rush through amendments without due consideration or deliberation and is not acceptable. There have been reports that the Power Ministry has circulated an Electricity (Amendment) Bill proposing Amendments to the Electricity Act 2003. The proposed amendments entail de-licensing of the distribution business. Copy of the letter addressed to the PM has been endorsed to all Chief Ministers with the request to use good offices to ensure that Bill is placed in public domain and all stakeholders including consumers and employees are given the due opportunity to submit their comments on the Bill.
He said that the reported matters in the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021 are un-authenticated and deserve to be discarded, particularly as they tantamount to introducing a drastic policy of separating carriage and content which was earlier rejected by as many as 20 states.
The outcome of the various suggestions of the stakeholders on the Bill 2020 remains undisclosed and a new Draft Bill 2021 has been leaked to the selected few. The present approach of the Ministry of Power is non-transparent and secretive, and seems that the Government is trying to hide secret critical facts.
PEECC stresses that all the stakeholders including Associations/ Unions of employees and engineers, consumers and others must be given sufficient time to present their viewpoints State Governments are not the only stakeholder.
Those who attended the meeting were Ashok Kumar Dubey-JKEEGA, Jaipal Sharma- DEA, Sanjeev Bali- PPEU, Anil Slathia-LWU, Jasbir Singh-ITI, Tarun Gupta-PDEU and others.
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