Balakrishnan urges TN govt to reconsider unbundling Tangedco into 3 separate companies

CHENNAI: CPM State Secretary K Balakrishnan on Tuesday urged the State government to reconsider its decision to unbundle Tangedco into three separate companies for distribution, generation, and green energy and withdraw its order.

"Such unbundling will lead to increased privatisation of the power sector and greater profits for private companies. Besides, there will be a situation where the electricity bill will rise and the general public, small businesses, and commercial organisations will be greatly affected. Also, this move will lead to affecting the welfare of workers and pensioners. Hence, the State committee of CPM requested the government to reconsider its decision and withdraw the GOs," Balakrishnan said in a statement.

Recalling the unbundling of the erstwhile TNEB into three companies in line with the Electricity Act 2003, he accused the AIADMK government of 2011-21 of heavy loss suffered by the Tangedco through procurement of high-cost power as it failed to increase the utility's generation capacity.

He condemned the Union government for insisting on unbundling the government-owned electricity companies so that more and more private companies could benefit.

Meanwhile, Balakrishnan, also wrote to chief minister MK Stalin, urging him to re-enact the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Labourers and Farmers (Social Security and Welfare) Act brought by the previous DMK government in 2006 to protect the livelihood of agricultural labourers and rural workers.

"Tamil Nadu has more than one crore and ten lakh agricultural labourers. They get very few days of work. Dependent only on agricultural work wages, these people suffer from insufficient income and loss of livelihood due to severe price hikes," he said.