Electricity staff on strike, long power cuts trigger protests in Puducherry

PUDUCHERRY is grappling with protests, including road blockades, for the past two days as an “indefinite” strike called by electricity department employees against the privatisation of the sector has led to long blackouts. On Saturday night, as outages brought the people onto the streets, several Opposition MLAs joined them, raising slogans against the Centre.

Even as the strike entered its fifth day Sunday, the NDA government is seen to have completely misread the situation and is now struggling to resolve the crisis.

The trigger was a tender floated by the Puducherry government last week to privatise power distribution, essentially putting up 100 per cent of the shares of the company that handles distribution and supply of electricity in the state up for sale.