Shramajeevigala Karmika Sangha today took an exception to the directions of the Energy Minister, D.K. Shivakumar to all the electricity supply companies to change the clauses in the contractual agreement with the Gram Vidyut Pratinidhis (GVPs) to transfer from their work place to another once in six months.
President of the Sangha, Chandrasekhar Hiremath told presspersosn in Kalaburagi on Wednesday that the decision of the electricity companies to transfer the GVPs from one gram panchayat to another once in six months has come as a surprise from the GVPs who were expecting the State government to honour its assurance of regularising their services as junior meter readers.
Mr. Hiremath said that GVPs who were recruited for service had clearly stated that the GVPs would be working in the gram panchayats where they are posted and perform their duties of reading the meters, generating the bills and collecting the billed amount from the consumers and paid it to the electricity companies.
The contractual agreement does not say anything about the transfer from one gram panchayat to another, that too in a short period of six months.
He said that the GVPs, who survived on the commission they received from the revenue generating from electricity bills without any assured retainership allowance, would be hard-hit with the changed working condition and it would be difficult for them to travel from their residence to the workplace every day to discharge their duties.
Mr. Hiremath said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who was holding the energy portfolio prior to Mr. Shivakumar had assured a delegation of GVPs that their demands were genuine and the government would consider regularising their services sympathetically.
Mr. Shivakumar had also told the GVPs that their demand for regularisation was just and constituted a committee headed by the Managing Director of the BESCOM, Pankajkumar Pandey to work out the modalities for the regularisation.
He said that it is not known whether Mr. Pandey had submitted his report to the Government on the regularisation of the GVPs. Protesting against the decision to transfer GVPs from one Gram Panchayat to another in violation of the contractual agreement, and demanding the regularisation of 3,650 GVPs working in the state, the GVPs in the jurisdiction of the GESCOM would hold a protest demonstration in Kalaburagi on December 19.
“If our demands are not met within one month, the GVPs in the entire state would converge in Bengaluru and stage an indefinite protest and other forms of agitation”, they said.
