NEW DELHI: Haryana’s striking electricity employees on Friday called off their three-day strike following a meeting with chief minister Nayab Singh Saini and power minister Anil Vij.The employees said Saini assured them that private players would not be allowed to enter Haryana’s power sector and that parallel power distribution licences would be revoked. Following the chief minister’s assurance, they agreed to restore electricity supply immediately.The next round of talks between the employees’ union and the state government will be held on November 3.The strike, which began on Wednesday night, was called to protest the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (HERC) decision to grant a parallel electricity distribution licence to private company Eleven Power for Gurugram and Nuh.
‘There will be no privatisation of any kind’: Saini
Addressing a joint press conference with Vij and representatives of the electricity employees’ union, Saini emphasised that there would be “no privatisation of any kind.”He also pointed out that the HERC is an independent regulatory body.“We have consistently maintained that we stand fully with the electricity employees’ union, and we reiterate that position today. It should be noted that the HERC is an independent agency operating under its own Act. From time to time, we, the state government, are also required to implement its orders and directives,” the chief minister told reporters at a press conference in Panchkula.“Exercising our authority under Section 108, the government has directed the HERC to review the matter and effectively cancel that provision (private power distribution). The government has provided full assurances. The electricity employees have stated that the strike is being called off, and our employees will now immediately resume their duties. Our position is absolutely firm: there will be no privatisation of any kind,” he added.
How strike triggered chaos
Thousands of households were left without electricity and water, nearly 1,800 manufacturing units faced disruption, and residents took to the streets as a three-day strike crippled power supply across Gurugram, Haryana’s financial hub.
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Gurugram, which has around 8.5 lakh electricity consumers, witnessed widespread disruptions, particularly in the city’s old areas. According to residents, more than 50,000 households in the area were affected on Thursday, with several localities continuing to face outages after hours of waiting. The agitation also affected Faridabad and Nuh, where residential areas and industrial units reported power cuts.Also Read | Dark homes, dry taps, idle factories: Gurgaon hit by 16-hour power cuts amid strikeThe scale of the disruption was reflected in the complaints received by Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN). An official said the department received more than 3,000 complaints in the first 12 hours of the strike, while DHBVN’s helplines logged around 5,000 outage complaints on Thursday.