Srinagar /Dec, 19 : Chairman Jammu and Kashmir Civil Society Forum (JKCSF) on Sunday endorsed it’s full support to the demands of employees of power development department in Jammu and Kashmir who have gone on indefinite pen down against the privatisation of grid stations.
In a statement, issued here on Sunday the Chairman Jammu and Kashmir Civil Society Forum (JKCSF) Abdul Qayoom Wani said that the employees, under the banner of Power Employees and Engineers Coordination Committee (PEECC) J&K are genuinely demanding white paper on non-creations and regularisation of engineers and PDL, TDL staff and casual labours besides opposing any move by the government to privatize this vital sector.
“The Power Development Department was converted into a Corporation and the employees were assured release of timely wages, promotions, and regularization of daily wagers. However, it did not happen and now the government was trying to privatize the grid stations,” Wani said, adding that ” government did not fulfill the promises made to the employees which is sheer injustice with them”.
He said that If the government moves ahead with any plan of privatisation, not only the Power employees, but consumers too will suffer badly, adding therein that the decision to privatise Power sector will hit consumers and traders hard as private players will increase tariff as per their own choice. Stating that Jammu and Kashmir is so much underdeveloped that consumers here will not be able to afford the increased tariff, the J&K CSF Chairman said that at the time of converting the PDD into power distribution corporation , the government had claimed the decision was taken for the improvement of the power sector but now they are going for privatization which is only being done to hand over the assets to big companies free of cost.
Wani in his statement statement further said that privatisation of PDD was not at all doing good to the economy of the public of Jammu and Kashmir but instead is worsening the livelihood of thousands of employees.
Wani demanded the rollback of the orders and plans for the privatisation of PDD and announce the regularization of the daily wagers and need based employees of the sector who run the department even during the periods of unprecedented economic stress.
