Lagatar24 Desk
Chandigarh, Feb 23: Following a three-day strike by electricity department workers, parts of Chandigarh have been without electricity and water for almost 36 hours. Thousands of households have been without electricity and water since Monday evening, and several traffic signals in one of India’s most well-planned cities are broken.
Striking workers have been charged of “acts of sabotage” by the administration in court. Many surgeries have had to be rescheduled at government facilities.
“We have a backup plan like we have generators. But you cannot put 100 per cent load of a hospital on a generator. So, we had to reschedule or postpone our planned surgeries,” said Chandigarh Health Services Director Suman Singh.
The electricity workers are opposing the department’s privatisation. Dharam Pal, the Union Territory Advisor, met with the powermen’s union to convince them to call off the strike, but no agreement has been reached thus far.
Employees who are demonstrating believe that privatisation will disrupt their working conditions and raise power prices. The Chandigarh administration enacted the Essential Services Maintenance Act on Tuesday evening, prohibiting the power department from striking for six months.
Meanwhile, the Punjab and Haryana High Court intervened yesterday and summoned the Union Territory’s Chief Engineer on Wednesday. Justices Ajay Tewari and Pankaj Jain also directed the Chief Engineer to inform the bench about measures taken to alleviate the power crisis in Chandigarh.
