Report by Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
During the struggle of power sector workers of Uttar Pradesh, an interesting aspect has been highlighted by the Vidyut Karmachari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti, All India Power Engineers Federation about the role of the All India Discom Association (AIDA) in promoting privatisation of electricity distribution.
The AIDA was formed in 2024 and consists of private sector distribution companies along with more than 30 Discoms, which are all owned by state governments.
It has seven functioning committees. None of them has even a single representative of the main stake-holders in power distribution i.e. the electricity consumers and power sector workers, whereas each of the seven committees, has members from private companies involved in the power sector business along with some members of various Discom managements.
The Committee on Policy Related Matters has one member from the Reliance group and two from the Tata group of companies. This Committee has been constituted to serve as a dedicated platform for addressing policy-level challenges and concerns faced by distribution utilities including even from those arising from draft regulations, policy proposals, and amendments circulated by the Ministry of Power (MoP), Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), and other relevant authorities. The website states that “The Committee is supposed to play a key role in policy advocacy”; in other words what is being stated is that going forward this committee will propose and promote power sector policies!
Among other things like finalizing specifications for key distribution assets, the Committee on Specifications and Procurement Practices, is also supposed to do material cost benchmarking. This Committee has two members from the Reliance group and one from the Tata group. It also has one member is from Indian Electrical & Electronics Manufacturers’ Association (IEEMA). This means that those who will be supplying the distribution assets are themselves involved in material cost benchmarking!
The Committee on Planning and Procurement of Bulk Power/Capacity has been constituted to provide strategic guidance and collaborative support to distribution utilities in matters related to long-term, medium-term, and short-term bulk power and capacity procurement. This Committee has two members from the Reliance group and two from the Tata group. Thus, representatives of those private sector companies which generate and sell huge amounts of power are on this Committee which will guide power procurement policies!
Other committees are Committee for Capacity building, Committee for Commercial aspects of Discoms functioning, Committee for Regulatory matters, Committee for Smart grid technologies. AIDA thus is clearly a policy deciding body on all aspects of power distribution.
In a majority of the states all over the country, Discoms which are in the public sector are responsible for electricity distribution. The big private companies are however very keen to rapidly take over these Discoms and earn super profits. AIDA has been very clearly constituted to serve the purpose of the big capitalist groups of our country.
Apart from Discoms from the public sector, various state governments are also directly assisting AIDA. For example, the AIDA website very proudly flaunts that the Energy Department of the Government of Maharashtra is supporting the Distribution Utility Meet in Mumbai on 6th and 7th November 2025, which AIDA is hosting. The theme of the Meet is “PPP model for Discoms Sustainability”. This means it will discuss how the PPP model should be used to privatise Discoms.
Some Discoms have, it seems, actually given monetary contributions of crores of rupees to AIDA. From this it is apparent that many discom managements are actively involved with big private power corporations in promoting the privatisation of power distribution!
This example shows that the real policies are formulated by big capitalists of our country in close co-ordination with governments of the day behind the backs of working people of India, and various bodies like Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha just put a rubber stamp on those policies. Big capitalists are the actual rulers of the country. Various political parties which are forming governments today are implementing the policies directed by capitalists, while claiming to be working for people.