Statewide agitation in Haryana against parallel power licence, Agri DISCOM and smart meters

Farmers, electricity workers, workers and consumer organizations on Tuesday announced a State-wide agitation against the Haryana government’s proposal to issue a parallel electricity distribution license in Gurugram and Nuh, create a separate Agri DISCOM and introduce smart metering across the state.

To spearhead the movement, a common platform called Haryana Electricity Employees and Consumers Struggle Forum was created at the meeting held at the employees’ hall in Rohtak.

The meeting was called on the initiative of All Haryana Power Companies Workers Union and was chaired by the Union’s State president Suresh Rathi, HSEB Workers’ Union president Anil Kaushik and Haryana Power Companies SC/ST & BC Union State president Vijender Singh Barar. The forum decided to launch the agitation with mass demonstrations in Nuh on July 21 and Gurugram on July 22, followed by protest programs in all districts of Haryana by August 8.

‘Anti-human’

Speaking at the meeting, Subhash Lamba, national president of Electrical Employees Federation of India and All India State Government Employees Federation, said the proposed changes are aimed at privatizing the public electricity distribution system. He described the parallel license, Ağrı DISCOM and smart metering as “anti-people and anti-employee” measures and called for a broad-based democratic struggle against them.

All Haryana Power Companies Workers Union President Devender Singh Hooda said the state’s electricity distribution network was built with the hard work of over 8,000 employees and “under no circumstances will it be allowed to be handed over to private companies”.

Farmer leaders also joined the protest call. Inderjit Singh and Ratan Singh Mann of Joint Kisan Morcha, during the public hearing held on July 8, criticized Eleven Power Private Limited for allegedly mobilizing several consumers in support of its application for parallel distribution licence. They said thousands of stakeholders, including employees and consumers, had raised objections to the proposal. They added that the Haryana power distribution company had also raised legal and technical objections and sought rejection of the petition. However, instead of rejecting the objections, the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) constituted a three-member committee to examine the objections and submit a report within 15 days and then take a final decision.

Farmer leaders alleged that the proposed Agricultural DISCOM is an attempt to weaken the existing energy subsidy mechanism for agriculture. The challenger forum will intensify the campaign in the coming weeks to put pressure on the government and regulator to withdraw the proposals, leaders said.