METER READERS STAGED A SIT-IN PROTEST

METER READERS STAGED A SIT-IN PROTEST

20-AUG-ENG 22

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA--------------------------Today, in front of the office of the Executive Engineer of Electricity of Bhojpur Division located at the local Japanese Farm, the union of employees working under EMDEE Company for meter reading for years held a one-day sit-in collectively in support of their demands. It was chaired by the President of the Union, Ajit Singh. Addressing the sit-in, the President of the Union, Ajit Singh said that the youth of Bihar, suffering from unemployment, is so helpless and powerless today that they already had the burden of exploitation by private companies and now they are forced to bear the brunt of the policies of the government as well. Ajit Singh said that for about 12 years, the problem of maintenance of the family of about 300 employees working as meter readers in the district with the electricity department consumers for meter reading and revenue collection has come in a dire form. He told that the source of income of all meter readers is based on the meter reading of consumers at the rate of Rs. 07 per meter reading as well as 3% on the collection of revenue of consumers' electricity bill. On an average, everyone's monthly income used to be up to Rs. 22000. But due to the competition of installing smart meters by the department, this income had come down to about Rs. 18000. But today when the Bihar government has announced to give 125 units of free electricity to domestic consumers every month, after that all of us readers estimate that this income will be limited to only Rs. 4 to 5 thousand per month. Which is much less than the minimum wage fixed by the government.

Union President Ajit Singh said that in this regard, his union has given a demand application in the office of Divisional Executive Engineer of Ara Electricity Department, Electrical Superintending Engineer Bhojpur regarding regularizing all meter readers under the department and giving minimum wages fixed by the government.

Apart from the union president Ajit Singh, vice-president Rakesh Kumar Gupta, secretary Anil Kumar Singh, treasurer Satyapal Singh, the protest was attended by Ranjan Kumar Singh, Virat Singh, Manish Kumar Singh, Amit Kumar, Dilip Singh, Sunil Kumar, Vijendra Kumar, Nitin Pathak, Rana Singh, Roshan Kumar Srivastav, Pawan Kumar Shukla, Sagar Kumar Singh, Rakesh Yadav, Chotu Kumar Dubey, Shankar Kumar, Pawan Chaudhary, Sushil Kumar, Man Singh, Golu Dubey, Karmaveer Kumar and hundreds of meter readers.