Srinagar: Power department employees finally called off their strike on Tuesday, after three days of refusing to repair faults and leaving large areas across J&K without power in the bone-chilling cold. Sources say that the government has agreed to just one of their demands, which had already been agreed to on Friday, a day before the strike was started, by the Managing Directors of Distribution and Transmission departments.
Top sources in the Power Development Department (PDD), who were privy to the meeting with the employees union, told Kashmir Reader that during the meeting, the two MDs who were heading the meeting on Friday agreed to one of the demands and asked for the strike to be called off. But the employees did not agree and went ahead with the strike, the sources said.
More than 20,000 employees across J&K were on strike against the government’s plans to make a Joint Venture of JKPTCL with PGCIL. They were also demanding that the government issue a white paper on recommendations of the ‘Unbundling report’, create positions as mandated by the committee at Gazetted and Non-Gazetted levels, regularise non-gazetted staff, etc. They also asked for delinking of salary from Grant in Aid and release of a regular budget for all PDD employees on deputation to different corporations.
“On Friday the joint venture was said to be put on hold. There was nothing new added during the new agreement (today). Delinking of salaries from Grand in Aid has not been accepted but the employees have been told that salaries will be released earlier. This, too, had been agreed upon on Friday. About regularisation of employees, the meeting conclusions were same,” the sources said.
“In fact, their demand of getting it in writing from the Principal Secretary was not considered. He (Principal Secretary) did not even come to meet them. The meeting was held in Jammu with the Divisional Commissioner,” they added.
On Monday evening, a leader of the employees union was heard telling the striking employees at Bemina in Srinagar to remain steadfast and look for example to the farmers’ protests in India that made the Government of India withdraw three farm laws.
So what did the strike that put thousands of people in misery and hardship achieve? A top engineer told Kashmir Reader that the power load in Kashmir was 7 percent less than the peak load during the strike, while at Jammu it was just 300 MW against the peak load of 1100 MW, and yet people suffered long power outages with no one to listen to complaints and restore supply.
Majid Munshi, convener of the Jammu & Kashmir Power Engineers and Employees Coordination Committee (JKPEECC), which called for the strike, did not respond to this newspaper’s request for his comments all these three days. Just once he texted back, asking the reporter to come to the protest site to have the questions answered.
In Ratinipora area of Pulwama, electricity was cut for more than 13 hours until the sarpanch warned in writing that he will not be responsible if there is any damage caused to power infrastructure in public anger. A local resident said that people reached out to the department’s higher-ups but they did not listen.

Junaid Nabi Bazaz