Power staff join Seemandhra stir

Hyderabad: The heat of the ongoing Seemandhra agitations has spread to power generation units, maintained by government-owned AP Genco, with the employees of the units joining the protests on Monday. Though the impact of the employees’ agitation on power generation was less on the first day, the work force resolved to boycott their duties completely from September 6.

Over 2,000 employees working in thermal and hydel power generation units located in different districts of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions staged demonstrations at their respective offices. On the request of the AP Genco MD K Vijayanand, majority of employees resumed their duties even before their shift began in the morning. Since the power demand was high in the last one week in the State with the increasing temperatures and resumption of industrial production after power holiday lifted, the Genco officials requested agitating employees not to halt power generation in the crucial time.

Engineers working in Narla Tata Rao Thermal Power Station (VTPS) in Vijayawada and Rayalaseema Thermal Power Generation (RTPS) in Kadapa and in Hydel projects—Upper Sileru, Lower Sileru, Machkund, Donkarai and Muthugudem took part in the protests. The total installed capacity of the whole thermal and hydel power units, owned by AP Genco, in Seemandhra was 3000 MW.