1 week Ago
In an escalation of their ongoing agitation, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) employees staged a demonstration outside the Sunder Nagar division office on Monday, burning effigies to protest against the Punjab government’s decision of privatising the Lalru and Kharar divisions. The protest was led by key union leaders, including Gurpreet Singh Mehdoodan (divisional president, PSEB Employees Federation AITUC), Gaurav Kumar (divisional president, TSU), and engineer Jagtar Singh (state leader, Association of Junior Engineers). The protest began with a gate rally, after which the protesters burnt an effigy, symbolising both the Punjab government and the management of PSPCL.
The employees were joined by leaders from various organisations, including engineer Raghuveer Singh Ramgarh (Joint Forum), Satish Bhardwaj (Bijli Ekta Manch), and Keval Singh Banwait (Pensioners’ Association). The protestors condemned the government’s privatisation plan, which they described as “anti-employee,” and warned that any attempts to hand over control of the divisions to private entities would lead to a statewide protest. The leaders declared, “This protest is just the beginning.
If the government and management continue to ignore the anger of employees, we are ready, both mentally and physically, to take this battle to the next level.” The Punjab government’s decision to privatise the Lalru and Kharar divisions has sparked widespread concerns among PSPCL employees, who fear job cuts, increased tariff rates, reduced benefits, and overall job insecurity. The proposed privatisation is part of the state’s broader push to reduce its fiscal deficit by selling off certain public-sector assets.
The plan, which is still in its early stages, has faced backlash from trade unions, which argue that it will lead to the erosion of workers’ rights and poor service delivery for the public. Under this, the PSPCL management has mulled to hand over the maintenance tasks of 11 KV transmission lines and feeders installed in two divisions across five zones in Punjab to an outsourcing firm. To chalk out the next course of action, the four major employee platforms have called a joint meeting on May 8 in Patiala.
Leaders said stronger programmes of protest would be finalised during this meeting. Among those who participated in the protest were additional SDO Gurpreet Singh, Dharminder, Mewa Singh, Deepak, Dharampal, Kamaldeep Singh, Kamaljit Singh, Kartar Singh, Hirde Ram, Amarjit Singh, Manpreet Kaur, Jaspreet Kaur, Rajeev Sharma, Sahil, Nirbhai Singh, Kulbir Singh, Ram Das, Ramesh, Prakash, Balbir Chand, Sartaj Singh, Jagdish Chand, Sarbjit Singh, and Binder, Narinder Singh..
