Industry Owes Electricity Board USD 2.3M; Staff Strike Paralyzes Power

As of May, industrial units across Ludhiana city have collectively defaulted on electricity bills amounting to USD 2.3M. Among the major defaulters, Ludhiana East circle alone accounts for USD 1.3M in outstanding bills. Notably, at the beginning of the current financial year, pending dues stood at USD 2.2M. Solving this debt is one of the first issues the newly inducted Panjab industries minister Sanjeev Arora has on his hands. On 1 Jul, at the peak of paddy season, nearly 5.5K contractual employees went on strike, and regular employees of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) adopted ‘work-to-rule’ action to protest the Panjab government’s alleged failure to implement long-pending demands. The protesting contractual employees are demanding compensation for the families of those who died in the line of duty, a job for the next of kin in such cases, and regularisation of their services. Under the ‘work-to-rule’ policy, PSPCL’s regular employees have decided not to attend to phone calls after their eight-hour work schedule and have refused to undertake any overtime, which they had previously agreed to do to manage increased workloads. However, the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) Engineers Association has not joined this protest. To manage complaints, the PSPCL management, as part of their strategy, has recently issued orders at the division level to form special outsourced units to ensure uninterrupted supply of workforce during protests and strikes. Union leader Krishan Singh Aulakh said, 'This is not about providing uninterrupted electricity supply to consumers—it is a conspiracy to weaken the struggle against privatization. It is a clear attempt to pit consumers and employees against each other to divide them.' Meanwhile, on 7 Jul, Panjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann and National Convener of Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a 15 million gallons per day—upgraded from 10 MGD—capacity Sewage Treatment Plant worth USD 16.9M at Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar. City mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu has asked Mann to also address the city’s escalating solid waste crisis (earlier coverage).