72-hr power stir in Seemandhra

72-hr power stir  in Seemandhra
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Highlights

The Seemandhra Electricity Employees JAC has decided to convert their proposed indefinite strike from midnight of Wednesday to 72 hour strike following the intervention of the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy. Speaking to media after a meeting with Kiran and the CMDs of the APTransco, APGenco and APCPDCL, JAC chairman Saibaba said that during the 72-hour strike, essential services like water board, milk plants, hospitals and power supply to agriculture would not be affected.

  • CM holds talks with electricity employees JAC
  • JAC decides to forego indefinite stir
  • Stir with effect from Wednesday midnight
  • Essential services to be exempted from strike

Hyderabad: The Seemandhra Electricity Employees JAC has decided to convert their proposed indefinite strike from midnight of Wednesday to 72 hour strike following the intervention of the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy. Speaking to media after a meeting with Kiran and the CMDs of the APTransco, APGenco and APCPDCL, JAC chairman Saibaba said that during the 72-hour strike, essential services like water board, milk plants, hospitals and power supply to agriculture would not be affected. They said the Chief Minister had asked them to see that the public and essential services do not get disturbed on account of the strike and hence they exempted them from the purview of the strike.

They said the JAC of 13 districts of Seemandhra and the Hyderabad employees JAC would meet after the 72-hour strike and chalk out their next course of action. He said the employees have been observing their protests in various forms for past 40 days opposing bifurcation of the state.

Interestingly, even as the talks with the Chief Minister were in progress, the publicity department sent an SMS to all media organizations saying that the employees of the power sector agreed to postpone the strike following a request made by the Chief Minister. But a little later, the employees denied that they had agreed to any kind of postponement.

Earlier during the day, the employees working in thermal and hydel power generation units and APEPDCL, NPDCL and CPDCL announced that they would boycott their services as part of intensifying united Andhra struggle. Transco CMD Suresh Chanda and Genco MD K Vijayanand appealed to the striking employees to reconsider their decision in view of power crisis and increasing demand for power in the ensuing agricultural season. The top brass told the employees that the strike would impact power generation as well as transmission and distribution even if a section of the employees strike work. But the employees refused to postpone or call off the strike.

Genco officials said that they were making alternative arrangements to ensure that there would be no disruption of power supply during the three-day strike period. The employees of DISCOMS – APEPDCL (covering Vizianagarm, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam), APNPDCL (covering Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor and Kadapa districts), APCPDCL (Kurnool and Anantapur) districts will join the stir. This could affect the consumer services and power supply in the Seemandhra region.

Over 2000 employees working in thermal and hydel power generation units located in different districts in Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions were already staging demonstrations at their respective offices since the united Andhra stir began July 31.

Because of the strike, power generation will be affected in Narla Tata Rao Thermal Power Station (VTPS) in Vijayawada and Rayalaseema Thermal Power Generation (RTPS) in Kadapa. As of now, the total generation of thermal power by APGENCO is about 5,092.5 MW, and of which 2,810 MW alone is generated by the two plants in the Seeemandhra region, which constitutes over 55 per cent.

Power generation will also be stopped in hydel projects—Upper Sileru, Lower Sileru, Machkund, Donkarai and Muthugudem . The total installed capacity of the projects is 250 MW.

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