Chandigarh admn to punish employees involved in power disruption

Having been chided by the Punjab and Haryana high court earlier in the day for conceding to the UT Powermen Union’s demands when it had already enforced the Essential Services (Maintenance) Act, the UT administration on Thursday night decided to take disciplinary action against the regular employees “involved in power disruption”, while those hired on contract will be terminated.

In the aftermath of the court proceedings, UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit held a meeting with senior UT officials late at night, following which the administration chose to take strict action against the erring employees.

As per a senior official, 17 contractual and 130 regular employees had been found to have played a role in the disruption of power supply. Besides disciplinary action, they will also face legal proceedings under ESMA.

Also read: ‘Compromise with powermen akin to bootlicking’: High court summons Chandigarh DC

“The process to identify all employees involved in disruption of power supply has already been initiated by the police through CCTV footage and other evidence. The Chandigarh DGP has also been requested to put the investigation on fast track,” said a UT spokesperson.

Further, to find out the extent of damage caused to the electrical infrastructure and other details, a three-member committee has been constituted.

The committee, that will submit its report in 15 days, will comprise a superintending engineer-cum-electrical inspector from the power department, an executive engineer and one member from Punjab Engineering College.

Employees of the UT electricity department had given a call for three-day strike from February 22 to 24.

“Considering their genuine demands, meetings were held between the union and the administration, but the union was adamant to go on strike. On Monday midnight, power supply was disrupted at GMCH-32, GMSH-16 and several main areas of city, resulting in inconvenience and harassment to public,” said the spokesperson.

ESMA was imposed on Tuesday night to prohibit strikes by the powermen for six months.

For nearly two days, lakhs of Chandigarh residents were forced to live without electricity and water supply, while the health services, industry, businesses and educational institutions suffered major disruptions due to the strike.

On Wednesday evening, the administration had reached an agreement with the union after conceding to their demand of “not issuing the letter of intent to the private company till March 10”. The high court is slated to take up the case against power privatisation on March 10.

Action in the works

Disciplinary action against regular employees involved in power disruption

Termination of outsourced employees

FIR under Essential Services (Maintenance) Act

Secretary, engineering, to conduct inquiry into sabotage; DGP also asked to expedite police probe

Committee of independent experts to be constituted to examine the extent of damage to city’s electricity infrastructure