By Shri Girish, Joint Secretary, Kamgar Ekta Committee
The electricity distribution franchising model is nothing but privatisation of electricity. Wherever the franchising arrangement has been implemented, consumers of have experienced serious problems such as wrong inflated bills, extreme delay in power outage complaint resolution, extreme delay in installing new power connections. In spite of negative experiences of people, privatization of power distribution is being carried out to satisfy the demand of the big power monopolies like Tata, Adani, Torrent, Goenkas, etc.
Mahavitaran company (or MSEDCL – the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited) which belongs to the Maharashtra State government is responsible for electricity distribution in that state. On 15th December the management of Mahavitaran declared a time bound plan of handing over the electricity distribution in 13 circles to private companies on a franchise basis. According to the plan, Franchisee Distribution Agreements are planned to be signed off by 2nd March, 2026 and Distribution Franchisees in the 13 circles are expected to “Go Live” by 5th May, 2026.
Under the distribution franchisee arrangement, the operation and maintenance of the distribution network, meter reading, billing and collection, attending to consumer complaints and providing new connections are handed over to a private company (franchisee). The franchisee is required to reduce the Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses and also collect bill arrears. Thus, the franchising model is nothing but privatisation of electricity distribution, even if the ownership is not handed over the private company.
When the 27 trade unions in the power sector of Maharashtra had gone on strike on strike in January 2023 and resorted to a 24 hour strike as recently as October 2025, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra had given a written assurance and announced in a press conference that ‘there will be no privatization of any kind’. However, those promises mean nothing in practice and the Government of Maharashtra has shamelessly declared its plan of distribution franchising.
In Bhiwandi, Mumbra and Malegaon Urban areas of Maharashtra, the Distribution franchisee model is operational for many years. The consumers of electricity have been experiencing serious problems such as wrong inflated bills, extreme delay in power outage complaint resolution, extreme delay in installing new power connections and above all arrogant behaviour of franchisee companies with consumers. Consumers are forced to pay inflated bills before their complaint is attended to. Electricity consumers have been forced to repeatedly come out on the streets against the franchisee companies.
Earlier, the franchise companies in Aurangabad, Nagpur, and Jalgaon had fled before the completion of their contract terms and the distribution responsibility had to be taken back by Mahavitaran with a loss of hundreds of crores of rupees. Even at the national level, the state governments faced similar difficulties from franchise companies in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
In spite of all such negative experiences, the Maharashtra state government is bent upon speedy privatization of power sector distribution to satisfy the demand of the big power monopolies like Tata, Adani, Torrent, Goenkas, etc.
The experience of consumers of public services shows that full or partial privatization or privatization in any form leads to steep rises in cost of services. Any such privatization leads to loss of permanent jobs which are replaced by contractual workers, and such contractual workers are forced to work for longer hours, even as much as 10 to 14 hours a day, at remunerations which are much lower than of permanent workers. They are even deprived of their legal dues like provident fund. More than 300 contract workers of the Malegaon urban franchisee company had to wage a stubborn struggle in October 2025, since the franchisee had not deposited provident fund money in their accounts for more than 15 months.
Privatization by franchisee model is against the interests of both the electricity consumers and the power sector workers. Both of them hence need to wage a united struggle and prevent the Maharashtra government from implementing the franchisee model.
Electricity workers are already waging a fight against another attempt of privatization of electricity distribution through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2025. The Bill will enable a private company to distribute electricity by using the existing infrastructure of a state owned distribution company (Discom) by paying a nominal charge. Capitalist monopolies will be able make profits without making any capital investment. The Bill has many other anti-consumer provisions which will make a necessity like electricity unaffordable to a large number of people.
The privatization of electricity began when the generation sector was thrown open to the private sector in 1991 by the Congress-led central government. Since then, every political party that has formed the government at Centre or in states has pursued the privatisation of electricity in various ways. Replacing the current political party in power at the centre or in states is not going to stop privatisation.
Privatisation is the agenda of the biggest capitalists of the country. It’s they who decide the policies of the country and get them implemented through political parties that are supported and financed by them. They are the real rulers of the country. The fight against electricity privatisation is a fight against the ruling class of capitalists.
Electricity workers with the support of farmers of the country have succeeded in defeating repeated attempts of electricity privatisation. They only way to stop these repeated attempts of privatisation forever is to wage our fight with the goal of replacing the rule of capitalists with the rule of workers.