Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

UDF to boycott all-party meet

Thiruvananthapuram: The Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) on Wednesday decided to boycott Thursday’s all-party conference convened by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan to discuss unbundling of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB).

The UDF decided to boycott the conference since a Cabinet decision taken on August 21 had made the recast a fait accompli.

The conference has been convened to work out the modalities of establishing the company, including preparing a detailed study of its assets and liabilities.

According to UDF’s assessment, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is pursuing the energy policy announced in 1998 when Pinarayi Vijayan, now State secretary of the party, was Electricity Minister in the E.K. Nayanar-headed Left Democratic Front (LDF) government. The policy envisages the setting up of five profit centres. The proposal had been opposed by KSEB unions then. “The Electricity Act was passed only in 2003. The CPI (M) laid the foundations for the split five years before that,” UDF convener P.P. Thankachan said at a press conference after the coalition’s high-power committee meeting.

He said the State government was not sincere in its efforts to retain the KSEB in the public sector as a single entity.

Several States had secured extension for the Central provisions for unbundling their State Electricity Boards (SEBs).

The LDF government did not bother to convene an all-party meeting to formulate an approach and jointly put pressure on the Central government for an extension.

The UDF made it clear that it was against KSEB’s bifurcation, a stand it had consistently taken right from the beginning when new laws in the power sector were mooted by the Bharatiya Janata Patry-headed National Democratic Alliance government in 2001.

The UDF said it was not opposed to the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the State.

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