Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

No thermal plant employee to be sacked: FM

- HT Correspond­ent

BATHINDA : Amid protests by employees of the Punjab State Power Corporatio­n Limited (PSPCL) against the closing of Guru Nanak Dev thermal plant here, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal on Friday made it clear that no employee of the plant will be retrenched .

Talking to the media during a function on the occasion of the Vishwakarm­a Day here, he said that even after the closure of the thermal plant, none of its employee , be it permanent or contractua­l, will be retrenched from the PSPCL.

“At one point, the PSPCL had about one lakh employees but now it has 40,000 employees. In any case, it has shortage of employees. Hence, no employee will be retrenched due to the closure of the thermal plant. The plant’s infrastruc­ture will remain as it is and it will be made functional whenever the need be, as per the requiremen­t of power,” he said.

The employees of the thermal plant have been staging protests against its closure. They recently alleged that some employees on contractua­l basis have been retrenched.

To a question, Manpreet said the Congress victory in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha polls and the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha bypoll will have positive impact on the party prospects not only in the assembly polls in the neighbouri­ng Himachal Pradesh but across the country.

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 ?? SANJEEV KUMAR/HT ?? Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal interactin­g with people during a function to mark Vishwakarm­a Day at Bathinda on Friday.
SANJEEV KUMAR/HT Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal interactin­g with people during a function to mark Vishwakarm­a Day at Bathinda on Friday.

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