Darkness in Chandigarh

THE power outage in Chandigarh, resulting from the three-day strike call by employees of the UT Electricity Department, has caused untold misery to the residents and businesses in the Union Territory. The Constitution guarantees the citizens of India the right to protest peacefully, but the present instance is not just a regular strike, in which employees merely stop working: With different parts of the city losing power on Monday night, right at the onset of the strike, it seems to be a clear case of sabotage. In other words, someone pulled the plug. Indeed, the sabotage theory is substantiated by the detection of snapped power cables in various parts of the city — and there being no outage in the locality housing a large number of Electricity Department employees.

Power unions are protesting against the privatisation of power in the UT, a decision taken by the Central Government in 2020. Ironically, the VVIPs of the city — such as the Governor, a representative of the Central Government — have been spared. By harassing the residents of the city, the striking employees have crossed a red line. Businesses and industry have already reported losses running into over a hundred crore rupees, hospitals have had to cancel surgeries and prioritise patients for treatment, patients receiving treatment at home have had to go without medical procedures, there has been chaos at the non-functional traffic signals, and water supply has been affected. All this over a Central Government decision in which the residents of the city have no say. The need to privatise the profit-making UT Electricity Department, the fate of its employees — and its assets, worth thousands of crores of rupees — should have been a matter of public debate. Instead, a horrible blackout was inflicted on the UT.

The Chandigarh Administration cannot be absolved of blame in the matter — it invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act and asked the Army for help only after the strike had crippled the city. It had been aware of the call for strike for over two weeks but when it did begin, the administration was caught completely unprepared.

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