Puducherry Jan 31 PTI Engineers and staff of the Department of Electricity here on Monday said they would go on strike on Tuesday February 1 to protest against the move of the Central and the Puducherry governments to privatise the power sector A spokesperson of the association of the power sector staff told reporters today that privatisation would affect everyone mostly farmers We joined work as government staff and will retire as government employees We resist the move to privatise distribution of power the spokesperson said Former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader V Narayanasamy had said the Chief Minister N Rangasamy should write to the Centre and oppose the privatisation plan Superintending engineer Shanmugham however asked people not to think that privatisation would lead to hike in tariff and that farmers would be deprived of the benefits they enjoy now Nothing of that sort will happen the official said A joint meeting of leaders of various political parties held under the leadership of PCC president A V Subramanian condemned the privatisation plan The parties that took part in the meeting were Congress DMK CPI CPI Marxist VCK and CPI Marxist-Leninist PTI COR NVG NVG
Coimbatore Oct 23 PTI Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji on Saturday reiterated his demand for proof on the allegations made by BJP State president K Annamalai against the former over purchase and contract of power Senthil Balaji was here to distribute welfare schemes including to those who lost their kin to Covid-19 He told reporters that Annnamalai was making baseless allegations against him to show his presence I have already put an end to the issue by giving necessary explanations and if Annamalai is really a gentleman let him provide the documents to prove his charges the Minister said He said he did not want to further comment on the issue as he had come here for reviewing various developmental works Stating that the Electricity Board has a debt of Rs 154 lakh crore and has been paying Rs 15000 crore per year as interest he said that after going deep into the issue it was found that 50 per cent of the debt was left by previous government on purchasing electricity PTI NVM NVG NVG
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