Invoking Ambedkar, trade union demands withdrawal of Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021

Invoking Dr. BR Ambedkar, who as the first Power Minister of India firmly opined that the power sector should remain under the control of the State and should not be entrusted to private players, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) has urged PM Narendra Modi to withdraw the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021 which seeks to privatise power distribution across the country.

Saying that the Bill “seeks to usurp the related powers of the states to the Centre, thus denying the federal structure of the country”, the CPI affiliated trade union said, “The subject of electricity generation, transmission and distribution is in the concurrent list in the Seventh Schedule of our Constitution…The impugned Bill is meant for whole-sale privatisation of electricity distribution…”

Asserting that private franchisees failed to carry out their responsibilities in the states of Odisha, MP, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Bihar, following which these states had to take over the electricity distribution, AITUC said, “The Bill is based on the World Bank-IMF prescription of “USER PAYS”, thus doing away with subsidies and cross-subsidies, which will have an adverse impact on the farmers and low end consumers.”

It is worth recalling here that the All India Federation of Electricity Employees, representing 15 lakh employees, had repeatedly asked the Central government to drop the Bill.

The Bill was put in the public domain in April 2020.

The Chief Ministers of 13 states and 350 stake holders had also opposed the Bill in the past. Notably, the withdrawal of the Bill is one of the key demands of the ongoing farmers’ protests.

It has been alleged that the Modi government tried to implement the provisions of the Bill without bringing it into Parliament first in Union Territories and then in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh.

In UP, however, the BJP government had to withdraw the move in the face of stiff resistance from UP electricity department employees.

Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary, AITUC alleged that the Modi government is secretly trying to implement the Bill without any consultations with stake holders. Citing a letter dated 18.03.2021 written by All India Federation of Electricity Employees, Kaur demanded the withdrawal of the Bill.

“We wish to remind you that back in 1943, Dr. BR Ambedkar, in the capacity of Power Minister, had insisted that power sector should remain under the control of the State and should not be entrusted to private players. Your government, while paying lip service to the Architect of the Indian Constitution, is, in practice, undermining all that he stood for and wrote in the Constitution,” Kaur said.