MSEB workers call off strike as trifurcation is put on hold

The Maharashtra Government has decided to seek an extention of six months from the Centre for restructuring of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB). The decision was taken at a prolonged late night meeting of the Maharashtra cabinet here on Monday.

The decision was announced in the house on Tuesday by Energy Minister, Dilip Walse-Patil. Following the assurance, the ten unions in the MSEB who had threatened go on strike from December 8, called off their agitation.

Mohan Sharma, Working President of MSEB Workers' Federation, said that union leaders had prevailed on the government to ask for an extention as Left parties in the Centre have already demanded several amendments in the Electricity Act, 2003.

Sharma said, that the entire state would have plunged into darkness had the unions resorted to the strike.

Members of a large number of power unions active in various state electricity boards are to hold demonstrations in front of the Parliament on December 10. The MSEB's unions are confident that this, along with pressure from the Left parties will force the Centre to amend the Electricity Act, 2003.

Sharma said that the Act was likely to be amended during the ongoing winter session of Parliament. Maharashtra Government should therefore wait for the Act amendment to come into force before going ahead with restructuring MSEB, he stressed.

The Energy Minister reportedly assured the unions that the new structure of the state electricity board will be decided in consultation with the unions.

Along with Walse-Patil, MSEB Chairman Jayant Kawale, MSEB Secretary Sanjay Bhatia, and Chief Industrial Relations Officer G B Sawalkar represented the government while Mohan Sharma, Narayan Chavhan, S D Dange, J S Patil, Shankar Pahade, Sanjay Joshi, Sayyed Zahiruddin, Madhukar Surwade, U G Punde, and Vibhakar Tanksale represented the unions.

Talking to newsmen on Tuesday, Kawale said that the effort of corporatisation of the state electricity board had been deferred. He however, maintained that the MSEB would soon have to go in for a "single phasing scheme" in the state to reduce load shedding.

Walse-Patil too admitted that load shedding will have to be resorted in the state in a planned manner. A schedule will be announced whereby urban areas will have to go without power for three hours daily, while rural areas will have no electricity for six hours. "This could also be on a daily basis," a senior executive of the MSEB said explaining the peculiar situation that the once power surplus state electricity board finds itself in.

Experts in the power sector said that single phasing would be troublesome for farmers who have five to ten horse power motor pumps to run.

"They can only draw power from three phase supply and if this is not going to be available they will find the going more tough," they opined.

They said that even if the MSEB provides three phase supply for a few hours to operate these pump sets, it will not serve the purpose because this would obviously be provided in the late night hours.

"You can't possibly irrigate a 10 to 20 acre field between say, 1 am and 4 am," said the experts.

They said that it would be much better if the government reconsidered its decision on free power supply and undertook a mass-contact programme to get the view of the people on the issue. "Paying for electricity is better than no electricity at all," they said.

Daily load shedding in Nagpur, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad

Major cities of Maharashtra including Nagpur, Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad, which had been exempted from load-shedding since one year, will now go without power for three hours daily except on Sundays.

Maharashtra Government has announced new schedule of load-shedding that will come into effect from next Monday.

This was announced by Energy Minister Dilip Walse-Patil while replying to a calling attention motion on load shedding raised by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs Devendra Fadnavis, Shobhatai Fadnavis, Chandrashekhar Bawankule and others.

As per the new schedule the four cities will go without power from 9 am to 12 noon on Monday and Tuesday, from 12 noon to 3 pm on Wednesday and Thursday and from 3 pm to 6 pm on Friday and Saturday.

The four cities will have to face load shedding because load shedding in towns having Class C and D municipal status and those with population over 25,000 has been reduced to four hours from six hours. The rural areas will continue to go without power for six hours daily.

The minister explained that as Maharashtra State Electricity Board's (MSEB's) generated most of its revenue from cities and if load shedding is further increased in urban areas the situation in villages will go from bad to worse. "It is due to the revenue collected in cities that the villages are getting power," the Minister pointed out.