Under orders of the Jharkhand High Court the indefinite strike -that had started on Wednesday under the leadership of the coordination committee, which represents nine unions of the state power board - has been withdrawn Friday. A division bench of the Chief Justice P C Tatia and Justice Jaya Roy on Thursday took a suo moto cognisance on the media reports over disruption of power supply across the state and issued notices to state chief secretary S K Chaudhary, Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) chairman S C Verma and to the representatives of the striking employees. During hearing on Friday, the division bench observed that severe action would be taken if the power supply was not restored within ten minutes.
Besides, representatives from the striking employees, the chief secretary and the JSEB chairman were appeared before the division bench.
Advocate on behalf of the state power board sought half an hour time to implement the court’s orders. On the other side, the advocate from the striking employees tried to convince the bench about the causes of the strike. The court fixed December 19 for hearing the issues of the striking employees.
Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda told media on Thursday that the state government was compelled to reduce the increasing financial burden on the state exchequer and hence lease out the distribution of power in Ranchi and Jamshedpur to Tata Power and CESC.
Soon after the high court’s orders on power restoration, the state energy secretary Vimal Kirti Singh told media that the employees who had gone on strikes should think over that they were engaged in a vital sector that provides electricity to all section of consumers like hospitals, nursing homes that required power to operate the live saving machines for the patients.
The JSEB chairman S C Verma told media that the employees who had gone on wildcat indefinite strike from Wednesday were misguided by their union’s representatives. The franchisees – Tata Power and the CESC were taken by the government to get better services both by JSEB and consumers.
Verma said the franchisees entry in the JSEB would not any way affect the services of the JSEB employees and the arrangement with the franchisees was not at all a move towards privatisation by the government.
However, JSEB chairman cautioned the employees that neither the government nor the power board (JSEB) would tolerate any move from the employees towards sabotage of the properties of the board.
Member (distribution and transmission) of the JSEB C D Kumar told Business Standard this evening that power supply across the state was restored.
