By Com. V K Singh, President, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)
Trade Union Critique of the Draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025
Summary of Key Provisions (as seen by workers and unions)
The Draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025, represents a decisive move toward privatization and corporate control over the power distribution sector. Its main features, framed by the government as “reforms,” actually pave the way for dismantling the public character of electricity as a social good.
- Multiple Distribution Licensees in the same area:
The Bill allows private companies to enter areas currently served by state-owned distribution companies (Discoms), effectively inviting corporate takeover of public infrastructure. - Open Access and Common Infrastructure:
Private entities will be allowed to use the existing public network for “open access,” meaning that infrastructure built with public funds will be used for private profit. - Claim of Reducing Financial Losses:
The Bill justifies these measures in the name of “efficiency” and “reducing losses,” without acknowledging that such losses arise from chronic underfunding, cross-subsidization of rural supply, and political interference — not from public ownership itself. - Assurance of Continuing Subsidies:
The government claims that free or subsidized power for farmers and the poor will remain. In reality, once private players dominate distribution, subsidies will become unsustainable and politically negotiable, threatening the rights of vulnerable consumers. - Centralization of Power and Weakening of States:
The Bill strengthens central control over licensing and regulation, eroding the constitutional autonomy of state governments and their ability to protect workers and consumers in their regions.
Trade Unions’ and Workers’ Perspective
From the viewpoint of power-sector workers, engineers, and their unions, this Bill is a blueprint for privatization, threatening not only jobs but the very principle that electricity is a public service, not a commodity.
- Threat to Job Security and Employment Stability
Privatization inevitably leads to layoffs, contractualization, and dismantling of permanent employment.
State Discoms, which currently employ lakhs of workers, will be forced to “rationalize” their workforce. Private players, driven by profit, will hire fewer workers on insecure terms. This will devastate families, local economies, and decades of technical expertise built in the public sector. - Attack on Working Conditions and Pay
Private control means the end of public-sector service conditions — pensions, gratuity, fixed working hours, allowances, and other statutory benefits.
New recruits will be denied public-sector status altogether, creating a two-tier workforce where insecurity becomes the norm. - Exclusion of Worker and Consumer Voices
The entire drafting process of this Bill has deliberately ignored worker organizations, trade unions, and consumer groups.
Consultations were held with industry bodies like CII and FICCI, but not with those who actually generate, transmit, and distribute electricity.
This is anti-democratic and corporatist in nature — governance for profit, not for people. - Risk of Tariff Hikes and Social Inequality
Private companies will cherry-pick profitable urban and industrial areas, while rural and poorer regions are left to underfunded state Discoms.
This two-track model will lead to higher tariffs for common consumers, while private operators extract profits from affluent zones.
Ultimately, the cost of “efficiency” will be paid by workers, farmers, and ordinary people. - Weakening of Public Accountability
Public utilities are accountable to elected governments and to the people. Private corporations are accountable only to their shareholders.
Once private Discoms take over distribution, the democratic chain of accountability will break, replaced by contracts, confidentiality clauses, and corporate secrecy. - Attack on Federalism and Workers’ Rights
By centralizing regulatory powers and overriding state authorities, the Bill undermines federalism.
States will no longer be able to decide employment conditions, service priorities, or labour protections within their own electricity boards — further disempowering both workers and regional governments. - Profit Motive Versus Service Motive
Electricity is a lifeline — not a market commodity.
Private operators will supply power only where it yields profit. Public Discoms, built to serve even the remotest villages, will be starved of funds and eventually destroyed.
This is privatization of profits and nationalization of losses — an unjust and unsustainable model. - Concentration of Corporate Power
The claim of “competition” is a myth. Once privatization begins, a few large conglomerates will dominate.
Experience in telecom, airports, and other sectors shows that privatization leads not to competition but to monopoly capitalism — destroying smaller enterprises, eroding union rights, and subordinating national resources to corporate control. - Threat to Service Quality and Worker Safety
Private cost-cutting directly affects maintenance, safety, and reliability.
Contract labour, reduced staffing, and lack of training will increase accidents and outages. The human cost will be borne by workers on the ground. - No Guarantees for existing employees
The Bill contains no provisions ensuring continuity of service, pay, pension, or seniority for existing employees.
This silence is not accidental — it is a deliberate move to make way for downsizing and contract employment.
Broader Consequences for the Labour Movement and Society
The Electricity Bill, 2025, is not an isolated reform.
It is part of a larger neoliberal offensive — privatizing essential services, weakening the public sector, and disempowering organized labour.
- It will undermine the collective strength of power-sector unions, one of the strongest bastions of the public-sector movement.
- It will increase inequality between urban and rural India.
- It will erode democratic control over a vital sector that touches every household and enterprise.
- It will replace public accountability with corporate impunity.
The Trade Union Stand: Reject Privatization Entirely
Trade unions categorically reject any form of privatization or corporatization in the electricity sector.
Electricity generation, transmission, and distribution must remain fully public, fully accountable, and fully service-oriented.
Instead of handing over public assets to corporations, the following measures should be adopted:
- Strengthen Public Sector Discoms
- Provide adequate state and central funding to modernize infrastructure and reduce technical losses.
- Recruit and train staff instead of outsourcing and contractualization.
- Improve efficiency through democratic worker participation, not corporate intrusion.
- Protect and Enhance Workers’ Rights
- Guarantee permanent employment, pensions, and service benefits for all existing and future employees.
- End all forms of contract labour and outsourcing.
- Enshrine collective bargaining and trade-union recognition in law.
- Democratize Power-Sector Governance
- Constitute worker-consumer councils in every Discom to participate in decision-making.
- Ensure full transparency of accounts and budgets.
- Public hearings at the state level before any structural or tariff change.
- Uphold Social and Developmental Obligations
- Power supply to rural, agricultural, and low-income consumers must be guaranteed as a right, not a subsidy.
- Cross-subsidization should be strengthened to promote social equity.
- Electricity should remain affordable, universal, and uninterrupted — a public service obligation.
- Strengthen State Autonomy and Federal Principles
- States must retain full authority over electricity policy, regulation, and employment in their Discoms.
- The Centre’s role should be supportive, not supervisory.
- Electricity policy should serve regional development, not corporate concentration.
Conclusion
The Draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025, represents a direct assault on the public sector, workers’ rights, and national sovereignty.
By opening the door to privatization, it endangers employment security, service equity, and democratic accountability.
For the trade union movement, the position is clear and non-negotiable:
- Electricity must remain a public service — publicly owned, publicly managed, and publicly accountable.
- No privatization, no corporatization, and no compromise
The real solution to the power sector’s problems lies not in selling it to private profiteers but in democratizing and strengthening public ownership, ensuring that the nation’s electricity serves people — not profit.