Overview
- The three-day statewide strike began on Thursday, October 22 and is scheduled to run through October 24 with unions and lower-rank staff reported to be participating.
- Unions are protesting the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission's October 19 decision to grant Eleven Power a 25-year parallel distribution licence for Gurugram and Nuh that would allow consumers to switch suppliers once infrastructure is built.
- Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam field staff warned that many repair teams will be unavailable during the strike and that reported faults may go unattended, causing outages, water-supply problems and local protests in several districts.
- Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has publicly backed the unions, ordered a legal challenge at the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity, and directed security and contingency measures including deployment of 6,230 police personnel, district control rooms, drones and retired staff to protect installations and keep essential services running.
- Gurugram is a high-revenue district for the state discom and unions say opening whole revenue districts to a private operator risks de facto privatisation and job losses while the legal appeal and regulatory rules will determine whether parallel licensing expands or is restricted.