India : Power staff union's four-day meet to begin today
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to deliver valedictory address
The Central Organisation of Tamil Nadu Electricity Employees (COTEE-CITU), one of the leading trade unions of electricity employees, will hold its
four-day 15th State conference here from Saturday.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will address a public meeting to be held here on August 16 as concluding event of the conference. This would be followed by a rally of electricity workers.
Addressing a press conference here on Friday, S.S.Subramanian, general secretary of COTEE, spelled out the agenda of the conference.
He said the conference would discuss the ill-effects of State electricity board entering into a long-time power purchase agreements with private power generation companies like Adani. “While power from hydro and thermal power projects of the public sector could be tapped at a rate of Rs.3.30 per unit, Tamil Nadu has entered into long-time power purchase agreement with Adani to purchase power at a rate of Rs.7.01. But Adani was willing to offer power at Rs.5.20 per unit in Madhya Pradesh,” he said, and added that the issue would be discussed at the conference.
The meet would also demand that the government execute all the power generation projects announced by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
“The State government claims that it is power surplus, but its own statistics suggests that the State’s power requirement is 15,500 mw while its generation capacity is 13,941 mw,” he said.
The conference would express solidarity with farmers’ demand for prompt power connection, demand that government begin wage revision talks and a minimum wage for contract workers be fixed. S. Anandan, State vice-president of COTEE, was present at the conference.
Power agreements with private firms, wage revision for contract workers among the agenda