NALGONDA: Employees and workers on Tuesday organised a massive bike rally as part of their ongoing protests against TG Genco’s decision to hand over the operations and maintenance of the Yadadri Thermal Power Plant to private companies. The mega plant is located at Veerlapalem in Damaracherla mandal of Nalgonda district.
The employees have been protesting for the past 20 days. The protests started after Genco invited tenders for an estimated contract value of around Rs 250 crore to outsource operations, maintenance, mechanical and electrical responsibilities of the coal and ash handling plants for Stage-1 and Stage-2 units for the next three years. This tendering process commenced on June 12 and concluded on June 29.
However, this move met with fierce resistance from employee and labour unions. They strongly oppose pushing this prestigious public-sector project — built at a cost of around Rs 35,000 crore with a total capacity of 3,200 MW to make Telangana a power-surplus state — into private hands.
Labour unions are furious that the government is floating private tenders by citing staff shortages as an excuse instead of initiating permanent recruitment. Union leaders pointed out that while nearly 4,000 personnel are required for the smooth functioning of all five units in the plant, currently only 1,262 employees are on duty, which they warn is severely disrupting power generation.