The Vidyut Karamchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti (Power Employees Joint Action Committee) in Uttar Pradesh has demanded scrapping of the decision of the UPPCL to handover Kanpur’s power distribution management to a private company. The Union Samiti consists of workers in all three wings — generation, transmission and distribution.
The Vidyut Karamchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti (Power Employees Joint Action Committee) in Uttar Pradesh has demanded scrapping of the decision of the UPPCL to handover Kanpur’s power distribution management to a private company. The Union Samiti consists of workers in all three wings — generation, transmission and distribution.
The Samiti has with facts refuted the allegations of the Mayawati government of increasing power theft and increasing transmission and distribution losses as justification for privatization. Using the data of the Power company, it has shown that revenue collected has increased by 15.55 % in 2009-1010 as against the previous year, while power received increased only by 3.4 %. The losses too have dipped, according to the samiti.
The UP power sector workers are demanding that the state government cancel the power distribution franchise in Kanpur, awarded to Torrent Power last year. While the distribution franchisee in Agra had already been transferred to Torrent in April 2010, the same in Kanpur has not materialised so far. Seven other cities are in the pipeline for similar ventures — Bareilly, Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Aligarh and Meerut.
At present, state owned Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Limited (KESCO) under the UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) distributes power.