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Powermen call off strike in UP

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

The employees of the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board unconditionally called off their strike this morning, officials said.

This followed a meeting of the representatives of the 93,000 striking employees and Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, at the latter's residence. The chief minister had earlier refused to bow before the agitating employees, who were threatening to cripple the state's power supply. But he assured them that no action would be taken against those who had participated in the strike.

A beaming chief minister, accompanied by Energy Minister Naresh Agarwal, told reporters, "Since the strike has been called off unconditionally, we will not take any punitive action against anyone." Earlier, Kalyan Singh had fired at least 15 engineers and made 85 fresh recruitments as a part of an effort to replace the agitators.

A K Dubey, a spokesperson of the joint action committee of the UPSEB employees, said, "After much deliberation, we decided to call off our agitation in the interest of the public." He also hoped "the government would not do anything against the interest of the workers".

The employees had protested against the government's decision to split up the state's largest public undertaking into independent corporations for generation, transmission and distribution, in accordance with recommendations of a World Bank team.

The World Bank had allegedly laid down this step as as a condition for approving a Rs 300 billion loan the board had sought for development and expansion in a phased manner.

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