As many as 25,000 employees of Haryana power distribution companies today went on a mass casual leave in protest against the state government's decision of "outsourcing" some of the operation and maintenance jobs of power sub-divisions in the state.
Describing the move of the Haryana government as "anti-employee", the protesting workers threatened to intensify their agitation against outsourcing if the state government did not rollback this decision.
The employees claimed that because of mass casual leave, power supply in many areas was disrupted as 500 power feeders remained non-functional across the state, causing inconvenience to consumers.
"25,000 employees of Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam today went on mass casual leave as we are protesting against the decision of the state government to outsource the job of operation and maintenance of 23 sub-divisions of discoms in the state," Subhash Lamba, General Secretary," All Haryana Power Corporations Workers Union said today.
Employees who were on casual leave were Junior Engineers, line men and clerical staff of UHBVN and DHBVN, Lamba said.
Lamba said in order to "benefit" few people, the state government had allotted the job of operation and maintenance to private hands.
"If this job is outsourced, our employees will be made surplus after some time and they will lose their jobs. That is why we are protesting against this move. Moreover, it will also adversely impact the bill recovery process and line loss of discoms will also go up," Lamba said.
The protest was supported by All Haryana Power Corporations Worker Union and HSEB Workers' Union.
HSEB Workers Union President Kanwar Yadav said, "we will not allow privatisation of work in discoms at any cost.
