By Dinkar Kapoor, State General Secretary, All India People’s Front, Uttar Pradesh.
It is clearly stated in the preamble of the Constitution that the dignity of the individual will be ensured in India. In all the decisions of the Supreme Court regarding the right to life given in Article 21 of the Constitution, it has been considered the prime duty of the state to provide every citizen with a dignified life. Any person can live a dignified life only when the state ensures the facilities necessary for his life like education, health, employment, electricity, water, roads etc. In the new economic industrial policies implemented after 1991, the state’s control over capital was abolished. The state retreated from the welfare policy and the governments started shirking their social responsibilities. Along with other facilities, the electricity sector also started getting privatized across the country and the common man has been forced to buy expensive electricity.
Recently, the UP-Power Corporation has decided to divide the Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam into 3 parts and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam into 2 parts and give it to the private sector. The arguments given by the government on this privatization decision are completely misleading. The government says that it has become necessary to do so due to the increasing losses in the electricity department because the government has to continuously give additional subsidy to the Vidyut Vitran Nigam, which is an additional burden on the budget. Whereas the truth is that at present the total loss of the Power Corporation is 1 lakh 18 thousand crores, while as per 2023-24, the outstanding recovery is 1 lakh 15 thousand crores rupees, which will be even more in this financial year. According to the Electricity Consumer Council, the major dues in this are of the government, police administration and big businessmen. If the government pays its dues to the Power Corporation and strictly recovers from the big businessmen, then the Power Corporation will come into profit.
The government’s talk of additional burden on the budget due to power deficit is also not correct. The truth is that this year the government has given Rs 46,130 crore to the Corporation, out of which 20 thousand crore rupees is subsidy, which is the social responsibility of the government to give under the Electricity Act 2003. Not only this, an inverted economy is being run in the state. In the state, electricity is produced at Rs. 1 per unit in hydropower plants, Rs. 4.28 in government thermal projects and Rs. 4.78 per unit in NTPC. These institutions buy electricity from the private sector at Rs. 7.50 to Rs. 19 per unit in the name of short term agreement by doing thermal backing, i.e. by stopping production. This stale economic policy is a major reason for the loss of the electricity department.
The statement given by the top officials of the electricity department in the newspaper that in this privatization, all the interests of consumers, electricity employees and stakeholders will be protected is an eyewash. Wherever in the country the private sector is providing electricity, consumers have been forced to buy expensive electricity. The rate of electricity provided by Tata Power in Mumbai as of 1 April 2024 is Rs 5.33 for up to 100 units, Rs 8.51 for 101 to 300 units, Rs 14.77 for 301 to 500 units and Rs 15.71 for more than 500 units. Whereas in Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation, the rate is Rs 3.35 for up to 100 units, Rs 3.85 for 101 to 150 units, Rs 5.50 for 151 to 300 units and Rs 5.50 for more than 300 units. Not only this, Tata Power has a flexi tariff system of electricity in Mumbai, that is, there are different rates of electricity for different times.
As far as the interests of the employees are concerned at present, there are 7 Chief Engineers level I, 25 Chief Engineers level II, 109 Superintending Engineers, 362 Executive Engineers, 1061 Assistant Engineers, 2154 Junior Engineers, 23818 Technicians, Clerks, and other employees in Purvanchal and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam. Apart from this, there are about 50 thousand contract workers. Out of these, contract workers will be hit the most. All the contract workers working in the privatization experiment in Delhi and Odisha have lost their jobs. The government itself has given three proposals to the employees. First, remain at the same place, second, go to another Discom and third, accept the attractive Voluntary Retirement (VRS). It is clear from these options that the interests of the employees will be badly affected.
The government has also said that line losses will be controlled by privatization. Line losses are high in the electricity provided by the private sector in the country. According to a report, the electricity provided by Reliance in Odisha till 2015 had 47 percent line loss. From 2020, the electricity provided by Tata Power there has 31.3 percent power loss in the Southern Area, 20.5 percent in the Western Area and 22.6 percent in the Central Area. Whereas the total line loss in UP Power Corporation is only 19 percent.
In fact, through privatization, the government is also carrying out the loot of government property. According to electricity workers, government works worth Rs 42,968 crore are going on in the Redeveloped Distribution Area Reform Scheme (RDSS) in Purvanchal and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Nigam. Also, under the business plan, works worth Rs 1,204 crore are going on in Purvanchal and Rs 1,190 crore in Dakshinanchal. Such a huge amount of public money deposited in the government treasury will be given to the private sector for free. This kind of loot is not new. Earlier, the CAG report proved that the government had incurred a loss of hundreds of crores of rupees in giving the electricity distribution of Agra to Torrent Power of Gujarat.
If we look at it, whenever the BJP government comes to power in the country, the privatization of the power sector accelerates. Everyone will remember that the 13-day Atal Bihari government had signed an electricity agreement with Enron, where the Maharashtra government had to pay crores of rupees without providing electricity and which was later cancelled. The division of Uttar Pradesh Electricity Board also took place during the BJP rule. The Electricity Act 2003, which opened the way for privatization of electricity and corporate profits, came under the BJP rule. Now the Modi government has brought the Electricity Amendment Bill 2022. In which the system of subsidy and cross subsidy has been abolished, that is, the cheap electricity that farmers used to get for irrigation and agricultural work will also be taken away from them. The situation will be such that farmers will have to pay Rs 10,000 per month for a 7.5 horsepower irrigation connection, which will badly affect the crisis-ridden farming.
People from electricity employees to farmers and civil society have stood up against this decision of privatization. It is expected that the question of privatization of electricity will become the centre of a big political movement in Uttar Pradesh in the coming times.
3 December 2024