[Marxistindia] Halt Privatisation of the Chandigarh Power Utility

[news from the cpi(m)]

February 1, 2025

Press Statement

 

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

 

Halt Privatisation of the Chandigarh Power Utility

 

The Chandigarh UT Administration is desperate to privatize its highly
profitable, efficient and low tariff Power utility. The high valued utility
was put up for bidding in an irregular way at a base price of a meager Rs.
174.63 crores without proper evaluation, whereas the profits of the utility
for the past several years were around Rs. 250 crores.

 

The Chandigarh electricity employees, their family members, elderly people,
women and children are demonstrating against this privatization for the last
50 days. The people of Chandigarh have formed an anti-privatization forum
represented by several village committees, resident welfare associations,
independent women organizations, Gurudwara committees, kisan and youth
organizations.

 

Instead of listening to the stakeholders, the Chandigarh UT Administration
has invoked Essential Service Maintenance Act (ESMA) and lodged FIRs against
the leadership. The electricity employees have also submitted their strike
notice as the last resort of their struggle.

 

Similar attempts of privatization of the electricity sector have been
unleashed in UP and Rajasthan also. This will endanger the energy
sovereignty and security of the country.

 

The Polit Bureau demands that Central and state governments should roll-back
these privatisation attempts. The Chandigarh UT Administration should
immediately withdraw all repressive measures invoked and start talks with
the stake holders of the electricity i.e. the struggling employees and
consumers. ‎

 

 

 

(Muralidharan)

For CPI(M) Central Committee office

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://cpim.org/pipermail/marxistindia_cpim.org/attachments/20250201/dc6d0dc8/attachment.html>