Revenue collection of Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (JBVNL) is certain to take a dip this month as over 200 workers engaged by its outsourced agency to read meters and make bills are on strike since January 1 over unpaid salaries.
These workers, also called Urja Mitras, engaged by private agency Quess Corporation under the JBVNL’s Jamshedpur circle of the Singhbhum electricity supply area board, have not been paid since three months.
Jamshedpur circle has over 2,25,000 lakh power consumers, including a large number of industrial consumers, generates revenues of Rs 60 crore a month under the JBVNL.
Quess Corporation has a three-year contract for meter reading and generating power bills in Jamshedpur circle to end on March 31, 2020.
Quess Corporation was also tasked with supplying manpower to maintain power supply under the Jamshedpur circle, but this contract ended in October 2019. Another private agency, Geet Raj Enterprises, received a provisional yearlong contract for the work.
An Urja Mitra on strike told The Telegraph on Thursday: “We stopped working as we have not received our salaries since the past three months. Our company (Quess) says the bill has not passed by the JBVNL. We won’t resume work till the company pays us at least a month’s salary.”
His colleague added: “We fear we won’t get our salaries at all as the company’s contract expires in March. This strike is a desperate measure.”
Executive engineer, Mango division, JUVNL, Vishal Kumar said they had written to Quess on Thursday to clear salaries at the earliest.