Amid J&K electricity crisis, department’s warning to employees: Going on strike not a fundamental right

The circular comes against the backdrop of a notice served to the PDD by the J&K Electrical Graduate Engineers Association to “sit on peaceful protest” on March 30 against the suspension of 32 engineers and other line staff.

The power department also referred to the General Administration Department’s 2023 communication “warning government employees to desist from uncalled demonstrations and strikes, which constitute an act of serious indiscipline and misconduct”.

Quoting a 2003 Supreme Court ruling in appeal titled T K Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu, the circular reads that “employees have no fundamental, statutory or moral right to resort to strike as there is no law regarding it, and also, according to various service and conduct rules, they are prohibited to go on a strike”.

“A strike is a powerful weapon… Government employees cannot… take the society at ransom by going on strike,” the circular pointed out, adding that “even if there is injustice to some extent, as presumed by such employees, in a democratic welfare State, they have to resort to the machinery provided under different statutory provisions for redressal of their grievances. Strike as a weapon is mostly misused which results in chaos and total maladministration,” the circular states.

The power department has suspended 32 employees, including assistant executive engineers and assistant engineers, citing continued “aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C)” losses in their respective areas. These include staff posted in far off and mountainous terrain in Reasi district as well as the Kashmir Valley, which lack basic infrastructure and where the law and order situation is volatile, an association leader pointed out.

“We have only served them notice intimating our decision to sit on peaceful protest,” he said, adding that “the government wants to put the employees in a cage and block all democratic ways of airing their grievances”.

The power crisis

With its AT&C loss at nearly 50 per cent against the national average of 19.73 per cent, the PDD in Jammu and Kashmir had a gap of Rs 4,500 crore between its power purchase cost and revenue realisation last year. Sources attributed these losses to over 50 per cent people in the UT paying power tariff bills on a flat rate system. “This is the highest in any state or UT in the country,” sources said.

To bring down these AT&C losses, the UT government has introduced various structural reforms in the power sector, which include installation of smart meters at the premises of all consumers. Out of 21 lakh households in Jammu and Kashmir, smart meters have been installed at nearly 11 lakh premises, sources said. To check pilferage of electricity, it is also laying uninsulated wire across the UT.