LARKANA: The All-Pakistan Wapda Hydroelectric Workers Union (CBA) on Sunday rejecting the federal caretaker government’s move to hand over power distribution companies to provinces, and advised it to drop this ‘unwise’ decision.

Talking to reporters here on Sunday, CBA president Abdul Latif Nizamani reminded the government that the companies (Discos) were national institutions and any attempt to change their status could trigger countrywide protests by workers.

Under different tags, the rulers of the time had been talking about privatisation and outsourcing of feeders and opting for public-private partnership mode, he said, and warned that all such things were detrimental of the interests of the country and workers of national institutions.

Decentralising power distribution companies, according to him, would sow the seed of hate between each two provinces and widen the rich-poor gap. He said caretakers were assigned the task of conducting general elections and they must keep themselves restricted to their task. Privatisation was none of their business, he added.

Vows to strongly resist any unauthorised move

Mr Nizamani said the caretakers must refrain from touching Discos for any purpose, else they would have to face a strong resistance from the CBA.

He criticised the people at the helm of affairs for their anti-worker posture, pointing out that due to heavy workload and unavailability of required gadgets, workers were losing their lives in the line of duty.

In the year 2022, around 60 workers had lost their lives while discharging during duties and till today this year, as many as 32 workers had already died while performing their duties, he said.

Government must think about the situation, said Mr Nizamani, and asked that for how long, workers would shoulder the bodies of their colleagues.

He noted that over 80,000 vacancies were yet to be filled in various power distribution companies but government had put the issue on the backburner.

The labour leader regretted that officers were compelling their subordinate staff to take extra burden. Workers were also forced to put their lives at risk by climbing poles during unfavourable and dangerous conditions. The CBA would no more tolerate all these things, he declared.

Mr Nizamani asked the line staff to plainly refuse to work during loadshedding hours without safety gears.

“We are here to defend workers if they are targeted by their high-ups in such a situation,” he said.

Mr Nizamani also held out the assurance that the CBA would ensure provision on all due benefits to the families of deceased workers as per the terms settled between the institution and CBA.

He spelt out the terms as Rs4 million for the widow, employment for one member of the family, double insurance, one residential plot and Rs10 million under the PM package.

He said the Wapda CBA would stand by workers’ interests under all circumstances.

Earlier, Mr Nizamani visited the family of a deceased assistant lineman, Afzal Qureshi, and offered fateha for the departed soul.

Iqbal Khan, Azam Khan, Nisar Shaikh, Zahid Shah, Shuja’at Ali Ghumro, Abdullah Soomro, Mehmood Pathan, Ashfaq Mahar and others accompanied him during the visit.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2023