Report by Kamgar Ekta committee correspondent based on inputs received from Comrade Suresh Rathi, President, All Haryana Power Corporations Worker Union
“Workers are lazy! They do not work! They want to earn their salary without doing proper work!” This propaganda by capitalists and their ideologues is so wide spread and continuous that sometimes some of us also fall prey to it!
For example, if a railway train or a state transport bus is delayed some of us blame the railway or state transport workers. If treatment is delayed in government hospitals or our children are unable to understand some subjects taught in schools or colleges, some of us blame hospital workers, doctors or school teachers! When we have to spend long time waiting for our turn in a bank, some of us get upset with bank workers!
The same happens when restoration of electric power supply is delayed and some of us end up blaming poor overworked electricity workers! But how many of us know that in all the public sector enterprises, there are huge vacancies of permanent workers since last many decades? The number of permanent workers is continuously declining and the existing permanent workers are forced to somehow give service to customers with the help of untrained contract workers. In addition to excessive stress due to overwork, in case of electricity, this situation exposes them to very serious safety hazards.
In Uttar Haryana Bijlee Vitaran Nigam (UHBVN), out of 17,956 sanctioned posts 7,392 i.e. 41% are vacant whereas in Dakshin Haryana Bijlee Vitaran Nigam (DHBVN) out of 22,338 sanctioned posts 11,327 i.e. 51% are vacant! While in both urban and rural areas, number of consumers has been increasing steadily and now there are around 82 lakh electricity consumers, but the number of vacancies of field technicians, linemen, metering workers and maintenance staff is constantly on the rise. Instead of recruiting permanent workers, through labor contract companies like Hartron and HKRN the Haryana government has employed around 11,000 contract workers. But neither these workers are fully trained not are they constant. This is leading to huge burden of work on Haryana electricity workers.
We have highlighted similar woes of electricity workers of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Such alarming situation exists in all the public sector enterprises.
Hence, instead of doubting each other’s work ethic, we the working people should reject the propaganda of capitalists and their ideologues and tell them that “it is only the working people of our country who use their physical and mental power and create all the wealth and services of this country!”. We must tell them that “they are the real parasites!”
In one voice we must demand an urgent resolution of this serious problem of vacancies which adversely impacts the well being of all the working people!