CHANDIGARH: All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has announced a major boycott involving lakhs of power sector employees set for March 10 against the proposed tabling of Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2025 in Parliament. The draft bill aims to alter the electricity distribution landscape by allowing multiple distributors to operate in the same region, sharing infrastructure. It also proposes cost-reflective tariffs while planning to eliminate cross-subsidies for industrial consumers over five years.
AIPEF's Chairman, Shailendra Dubey, highlighted concerns that stakeholder feedback was ignored, as the power ministry included pro-privatization groups in legislation discussions.AIPEF meeting is being held on Sunday March 8 at Dehradun to discuss the whole issue.
V K Gupta media advisor AIPEF informed that Ajaypal Singh Atwal general secretary PSEB engineers Association is leading an 8 member delegation to Dehradun. He said that there is no tearing hurry to adopt such drastic and shortcut methods which go against the letter and spirit of democratic functioning. All the objections raised must be clarified and made evident to all stakeholders so that their objections and points of dissent are duly considered before proceeding any further.
Suneel Grover Patron AIPEF and Lokesh Thakur President from Himachal Pradesh , Ravinder Ghanghas GS HPEA , two engineers vice presidents JKEEGA from Jammu and Kashmir have gone to attend the meeting.
Dubey said that the Bill is being placed on the basis of the suggestions of the Working Group report, where one of the constituents is the All India DISCOMs Association (AIDA) advocating in favour of the Bill .