Report of Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
The day 18 November 2025 marks one year of the heroic struggle of power workers and engineers in Uttar Pradesh. Under the leadership of Vidyut Karmachari Sanyukta Sangharsh Samiti, UP (UPVKSSS), workers have been continuously agitating against the proposed privatisation of two state power distribution companies: Purvanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Limited (PUVVNL) and Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Limited (DVVNL).
Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) lauds and stands in solidarity with this important struggle!
The electricity workers of Uttar Pradesh are fighting not only to save their livelihood but also to protect the interests of consumers, farmers, and people at large: privatisation will deprive lakhs of people of a fundamental need like electricity. Workers are rightly highlighting that the entire electricity infrastructure constitutes people’s wealth—this infrastructure should be used to serve the public, not big corporates.
Understanding the importance of uniting with consumers, electricity workers of Uttar Pradesh have organized multiple Bijli Panchayats in places such as Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Agra, and Lucknow, gaining the support of residential consumers as well as farmers.
Throughout their agitation, workers have exposed how the state works hand in glove with the capitalist class. The UPVKSSS has released several press releases detailing how the distribution company is exaggerating figures of losses to justify privatisation and how issues of conflicts of interest in the tender process are being ignored. They have revealed how the All India Discom Association (AIDA) has been formed, a body constituting representatives of big capitalist companies and chairpersons and managing directors of state-owned power distribution companies. In effect, through this association, representatives of capitalist companies are making policy decisions for the country’s power sector. Various state discoms have reportedly given large sums of money to the AIDA.
Workers have time and again pointed out how the privatisation of electricity has repeatedly failed in India. In Uttar Pradesh, the UP Power Corporation has reportedly already accumulated losses of more than Rs. 10,000 crore as it is being forced to supply power to Torrent Power at a rate that is lower than its investment. In Chandigarh, the service quality of electricity supply has dropped within 6 months of privatisation, with frequent power cuts and plans of a tariff hike being reported.
Notably, workers have continued their agitation despite tremendous attacks by the state. The Uttar Pradesh government has imposed ESMA (Essential Services Maintenance Act) and empowered company managers to dismiss and remove employees and engineers participating in the struggle. Salaries of many workers have been withheld.
It should be noted that the state government met leaders of the UPVKSSS only after they began an indefinite hunger strike in May 2025, 5 months after the agitation was launched. Moreover, after workers’ united actions in the last few years, the UP government had given written assurances in 2018 and 2019 that privatisation will not be undertaken without consultation with workers. All these examples raise questions about the kind of democracy we have. Workers have been struggling for a year and the government has still not addressed their demands.
However, workers have courageously resolved that they will not stop their agitation until the proposed privatisation is withdrawn.
In April 2025, the All India Forum Against Privatisation (AIFAP) organized the “All India Conference on Privatization of Electricity and Other Sectors” in Delhi, in which Kamgar Ekta Committee played a leading role. Leaders of workers’ organizations from electricity, railways, banking, insurance, telecom, coal, road transport, education, health, and other sectors participated in the meeting and unitedly extended full support to the struggle of electricity workers across the country. The AIFAP website is also constantly reporting on the struggles of workers in Uttar Pradesh.
It is the need of the hour for all workers, farmers, consumers, and the general public to support this struggle.
Kamgar Ekta Committee is committed to support the demand of electricity workers to stop the privatisation of state discoms, as well as to build unity between workers of different sectors and between workers and consumers.
We call on all sections of the working class to wholeheartedly support the agitation of the electricity workers in Uttar Pradesh!