HYDERABAD: Even though TS Transco & TS Genco CMD D Prabhakar Rao urged the power employees to withdraw their proposed strike on April 17, the unions have decided to proceed as per their original plans.
According to TSPEJAC, due to lack of proper response from the management and the government, they have decided to go on strike from April 17. They have also served strike notice. All the employees are called to move forward with the goal of making the strike successful to resolve their demands and the consumers have been requested to extend full support to the strike, TSPEJAC said.
On the other hand, Prabhakar Rao said that in spite of enormous increase in financial commitments borne by way of employee cost from 2013-14 to 2022-23, the managements of the TS power utilities have offered six per cent fitment benefit to all the employees, including artisans and pensioners, which may result in an additional financial commitment of around `526 crore per annum.
He said that the salaries and other benefits paid to the employees of the power utilities are on the higher side when compared to the salaries paid to the employees of other corporations/public sector undertakings of the State and power utilities in other States.
“Yasangi season is ongoing and requires uninterrupted quality power supply to the farmers of the State. Avoiding outage of power supply in order to prevent loss of harvest is the need of the hour. It is also pertinent to inform here that the SSC board examinations have just commenced and many competitive examinations of the Public Service Commission and other entities are in full swing across Telangana. As such, any sort of abrupt power disruption causes much inconvenience to all the sections of the society, including farmers,” Prabhakar Rao added.
Management is open to hold further discussions for resolving their grievances to maintain mutual Industrial peace and harmony. The managements of the TS Power Utilities have held series of discussions with the representatives of all the registered Trade Unions/Service Associations, who formed into JACS, on the grievances advanced by them in several meetings.The demands from power employees include wage revision and EPF/GPF facilities for those recruited from 1999 to 2004.