Odisha: Puri workers demonstrate against retrenchment in TPCODL

A demonstration was held in the Puri Division of TPCODL on 4 October 2026 against the proposed retrenchment of workers, and on other pending demands of employees engaged in meter reading, billing and related field work. The programme was reported by the Odisha state unit of the Electricity Employees Federation of India.

The CESU Meter Reading and Billing Karmachari Sangh had earlier served a demand notice on the management. It also began a joint platform of trade unions and employee organisations in the Puri Division, to oppose the retrenchment together and to defend the livelihood of the workers. That platform then mobilised across the Division. On 4 October the workers demonstrated in Puri and demanded that the management and the government intervene at once.

As part of the programme the unions organised Kusaputulika Dahan, a symbolic burning. The state unit reports that the effigies stood for the Energy Minister and Deputy Chief Minister, K. V. Singh Deo, and for the Chief Executive Officer of TPCODL, Gajanan S. Kale, in protest against the retrenchment and the unsettled grievances of the workers.

The demands placed before the management and the government are these. Withdraw the proposed retrenchment in the Puri Division at once. Pay all pending dues of the affected workers. Restore the 36 workers whose employment, the union says, has already been discontinued. Protect the livelihood and the employment of the meter-reading and billing workers who are still in the work. Settle the other pending demands. Open a real dialogue with the joint trade-union platform, and settle the issues early.

The unions have said that if the demands are not met by 12 October 2026 they will begin a work boycott in the Puri Division, with further trade-union programmes. They have also said that if the matter is not settled by dialogue, the responsibility for what follows from that action will rest with the management and the government.

On 28 September 2026 the union had already served a strike notice, reference PDBKMM/09/26, under section 62 of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 and Rule 42 of the Odisha Industrial Relations Rules, 2026. The notice, received at the TPCODL office in Puri, names 13 October 2026. The original letter is attached. It is in Odia.

The demonstration was led by the CESU Meter Reading and Billing Karmachari Sangh: Advocate Shrikanta Parija, President; Sk. Azad, Vice-President; and Nrushingha Das, General Secretary. The leadership has said that the immediate task is to protect employment and livelihood, and to reach a settlement through collective action.

EEFI Odisha places the Puri struggle in the continuing fight of electricity workers against retrenchment and against an arbitrary cut in employment. The mobilisation, the state unit says, shows what a joint platform and united action can do. The Odisha unions will watch the situation and stand with the workers of the Puri Division.