Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent’s Report
(Translation of Hindi report)
In the meeting organized by the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board Technical Employees Union, the office bearers expressed anger over the behavior of the officers of the Electricity Department and demanded from the managing directors of the successor companies of Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board that the exploitation of the employees should be stopped.
Prantiya General Secretary of Madhya Pradesh Vidyut Mandal Technical Employees Association Shri Harendra Srivastava said that the field officers of the Electricity Department have made outsourced workers, contract workers and regular employees worse than bonded laborers.
He informed that due to lack of regular recruitment for 20 years, there has been acute shortage of employees in power distribution companies, to meet this shortage, 45,000 outsourced employees have been recruited. While employees were to be recruited on regular posts to keep the electrical system running smoothly and uninterrupted, but due to not doing so, there is no assistant lineman, no lineman, no line supervisor, no line inspector in the system. Consequently the entire electrical system has become disorganized. If recruitment on regular posts is not done soon, the whole system will collapse.
He further said that the regular employees kept the electrical system running well and did all kinds of maintenance, due to which the transformers never burnt. But today the whole system has been destroyed. The main reason for this is the exploitation of outsourced workers, contract workers and regular employees by the field officers.
The field officers are taking more work from the employees, leave is not being given, due to which the mental balance of the employees is deteriorating. Employees are not able to give time to the family. The officers cut off the electricity of the consumers at 5 am without any written order. When an untoward incident happens, the officers get away with it.
All the speakers demanded from the management of power companies that instructions should be issued to the field officers not to exploit the employees and treat them humanely and to recruit regular employees at the earliest.