Patiala, May 23: To resolve the burning demands and problems of the electricity employees and to stop the steps taken by the Powercom Management towards privatization, a huge demonstration was held by the electricity employees in front of the head office in the scorching heat under the leadership of comrade Harpreet Singh, State Co-Convener, in which thousands of electricity employees participated.
Addressing the electricity employees who had come from all corners of Punjab, state leaders Dalbir Singh Johal, Harpreet Singh, Sanjeev Kumar, Sanjeev Saini, Deepak Kumar, Surinder Dharangwala, Singar Chand, Sindar Singh, Lakhvir Singh said that as per the 6th Pay Commission, the arrears of revised pay, pension, family pension, leave encashment (including dearness allowance/dearness allowance) should be given in two installments in the year 2025, old pension scheme should also be implemented for the employees recruited after 2004, C.R.A. Linemen/SSA recruited under 249/4, 267/11 and 281/13 should be given the benefits of pensionary benefits, seniority and contract period in promotion.
295/19, the remaining 25 colleagues should be reinstated and regularized, the scale of Electricity Corporation should be implemented instead of the Central Government pay scale on the employees appointed from July 2020, the employees recruited before July 2021, whose appointment/promotion has been done after the implementation of the revised scale, should be given a 15 percent increase as per Finance Circular No. 24/21, the basic salary should be increased to 35400 along with the revised pay and other important issues should be resolved immediately and the problem should be resolved as per the demand letter given by the organization. But instead of resolving the demands and issues, the management of Powercom has started taking steps towards giving all the work of electricity management on a trial basis in 10 divisions including Lalru and Kharar divisions, which was strongly opposed in today's demonstration and it was demanded that the policy of privatization inside the organization should be stopped immediately.
While addressing the protest, comrades Kuldeep Singh Khanna, Chief Advisor, Avtar Singh Kainth, President Joint Action Committee Head Office Patiala, Jagjit Singh Kanda, former Joint Forum leader, Jagtar Singh Uppal, former State General Secretary, Pritam Singh Pindi, Darshan Singh Belumajara, leader of the United Front of People's Organizations, Gurcharan Singh Nabha etc. demanded from the management of Powercom that thousands of vacant posts in the organization should be filled immediately through regular recruitment, the heirs of the deceased who have missed applying should be given a chance and jobs should be given after depositing the initial amount of salary, all types of meter readers employed on temporary contracts including CHB should be made permanent immediately.
In today's huge protest, thousands of employees of the Technical Services Union, with slogans echoing in the sky, insisted on the management of Powercom accepting the important demands of the employees. At the same time, the misconceptions of many misleading forces were also dispelled. The stage was managed very well by Comrade Dalbir Singh Johal. In the end, Comrade Harpreet Singh Faridkot State Co-convener thanked the thousands of comrades who had come to the protest.