A report by KEC correspondent
Disregarding severe and continuous opposition to privatization of power sector by all sections of population, the UP government has arrogantly released one more tender to privatize hydel power projects in Uttar Pradesh. This once again highlights how “democracy” functions in the interest of capitalist class.
A new move towards privatization of power sector by Uttar Pradesh Government has come to light. On 18th February, Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam floated a tender for operational control of six small hydel projects in UP. This new move of privatization has been taken despite the ongoing opposition of lakhs of UP power sector workers and crores of UP farmers and electricity consumers for last many years to the proposed privatisation of two discoms of the UP.
This is one more example which should make us think whether what we have in our country is “genuine democracy” for working people who constitute majority of our population or is it that under the garb of “democracy” the “capitalist class dictates all the policies”?
The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has very rightly declared its total opposition to this privatization plan. The AIPEF convenor in a written statement has pointed out that the six small hydel projects namely Bhola, Salawa, Nirgjani, Chittaura, Palra and Sumera, all located on the Upper Ganga Canal, have round the year water availability and with a limited investment can be easily revived and modernized. The letter further points out that all the investment will be recovered in less than a year and after that the electricity generated by them will be available at a very cheap cost since hydel power is the cheapest source of electricity generation. Instead of taking this logical step the UP government is wanting to hand over these six projects on a lease of 42 years to capitalists.
The AIPEF letter also highlights that the total generating capacity of these six projects is actually around 15.5 MW, whereas in the tender the capacity has been deliberately shown as much less, 6.3 MW only, and for this artificially reduced capacity the bidders are expected to pay @Rs.1.5 crore per MW. The tender document thus reeks of rampant corruption.
AIPEF letter also points out that all these six projects have huge quantity of land which will surely be commercially exploited by the private capitalist to earn huge profit. The AIPEF hence has demanded that the UP state government should immediately cancel the tendering process and do the needful to revive the six small hydel projects.
Similar attempts in other states of our country have also witnessed stiff opposition from working people. For example in Maharashtra, when the State government went back on its words that it would not privatize hydro power projects, the power sector workers of Maharashtra unitedly opposed the move.
Such examples of total disregard towards the will of huge majority of people of our country abound in all facets of our life. While opposing such roughshod moves by various governments, we must all think as to how to bring to an end such a “dictatorship of a few in the garb of democracy”.