PSEB engineer is AIPEF chairman

Rupnagar, Jan 14 (UNI) PSEB Engineers Association patron Padamjit Singh has been unanimously elected chairman of the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) during its federal council meeting held at Nagpur.

Disclosing this today AIPEF spokesman V K Gupta said Shailender Dubey was elected Secretary General of the federation during the meeting, which was attended by delegates from 18 states. Suneel Grover from Himachal Pradesh and Ratnakar Rao from Andhra Pradesh were elected as senior vice chairmen while K Apparswami, B L Jat, Nihar Ranjan Rai and Jambu Khot were elected as Vice Chairmen.

A K Jain of DVC and Surinder Tewari from Madhya Pradesh were elected as Additional Secretary Generals, Balbir Singh (CEA), George Mathew (Kerala), A K Singh (Bihar) and Manoj Khare (Maharashtra) were elected as Joint Sectaries. Bal Mukund Munshi was elected as Secretary Publication while M C Sharma was elected as Secretary (Headquarter).

Mr Gupta said that the federal council passed a resolution strongly condemning the new back door method of privatisation of power sector by way of franchisee system, being adopted in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, under which creamy industrial areas and selected urban areas are offered to private companies to run the distribution system for a period ranging from 10 to 15 years for fixed revenue to the Government.

In another resolution AIPEF demanded the review of Electricity Act 2003 particularly those clauses where the powers of states had been withdrawn. The unbundling of states and the model to be adopted should be left to states.

It was noted with concern during the meeting that the planned capacity addition is central sector in 11th plan is around 40000 MW whereas in state sector planned capacity addition is around 22000 MW.This would further lead to blackmailing of states in future by Centre while giving unallocated power, Gupta said.

AIPEF senior vice chairman Suneel Grover, vice chairman Jambu Khot, PSEB Engineers Federation president H S Bedi also spoke on the occasion.

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