Farmers, electricity employees, workers and consumer organisations on Tuesday announced a Statewide agitation against the Haryana government’s proposal to grant a parallel electricity distribution licence in Gurugram and Nuh, create a separate Agri DISCOM, and roll out smart metering across the State.
A joint platform, Haryana Electricity Employees & Consumers Struggle Forum, was constituted at a meeting convened at the employees’ hall in Rohtak to spearhead the movement.
The meeting was called on the initiative of the All Haryana Power Corporations Workers’ Union and was jointly chaired by State president of the union Suresh Rathi, chairman of HSEB Workers’ Union Anil Kaushik, and State president of Haryana Power Corporations SC/ST & BC Union Vijender Singh Barar. The forum resolved to launch the agitation with mass demonstrations in Nuh on July 21 and in Gurugram on July 22, followed by protest programmes in all districts of Haryana till August 8.
‘Anti-people’
Addressing the gathering, national president of the Electricity Employees Federation of India and All India State Government Employees Federation, Subhash Lamba, said the proposed amendments were aimed at privatising the public power distribution system. He termed the parallel licence, Agri DISCOM and smart metering as “anti-people and anti-employee” measures and called for a broad-based democratic struggle against them.
Chairman of All Haryana Power Corporations Workers’ Union Devender Singh Hooda, said the State’s power distribution network had been built through the hard work of over 8,000 employees and “will not be allowed to be handed over to private companies under any circumstances”.
Farmer leaders also joined the protest call. Inderjit Singh and Ratan Singh Mann of the Joint Kisan Morcha criticised Eleven Power Private Limited for allegedly mobilising a few consumers in support of its application for a parallel distribution licence during the public hearing held on July 8. They said lakhs of stakeholders, including employees and consumers, had submitted objections to the proposal. The Haryana power distribution utility had also raised legal and technical objections and sought rejection of the petition, they added. However, instead of rejecting it, the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) has constituted a three-member committee to examine the objections and submit a report within 15 days, after which a final decision will be taken.
The farmer leaders alleged that the proposed Agri DISCOM was an attempt to weaken the existing power subsidy mechanism for agriculture. Leaders said the struggle forum would intensify the campaign in the coming weeks to build pressure on the government and the regulator to withdraw the proposals.
Published – July 15, 2026 01:07 am IST
