A protest demonstration was held in Srinagar against the Modi-led Indian government’s anti-people policies and actions, aimed at fleecing already poverty-stricken people in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the protest was organized by traders union at Press Enclave in the city and the participants denounced the regime’s plan to privatise electricity, railways and public sector entities and install smart meters across Jammu and Kashmir to benefit the Indian Prime Minister’s cronies on one hand, and to overcharge the Kashmiri people, on the other.
Trader leaders along with Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami led the protest march. The traders expressed serious concern over problems being faced by the working class.
“The strike is part of the continuous struggle against the anti-worker and anti-people neo-liberal policies of the BJP-led government,” Tarigami said and added that the regime is pro-corporate and is reversing the hard-earned rights of the labour class.
Tarigami said privatisation of electricity posed the risk of establishing monopoly control over consumers through the market.
The Modi government’s preferred approach of “unbundling” is essentially a move towards privatising the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity, he added.
The Modi regime, he said, aims to dismantle state-owned distribution companies, handing over the entire public asset to private players, both domestic and foreign.
If the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2022 is passed, private distributors will not have to invest in creating their own distribution infrastructure to obtain a parallel licence for electricity distribution, he added.
Tarigami maintained that electricity consumers in the occupied territory are aggrieved as they cannot afford the inflated bills generated by smart meters. “Despite resentment, the administration is going ahead with the move. We need adequate electricity and not meters only,” he said.—KMS
