The Telangana Electricity Employees’ Joint Action Committee (TEEJAC) has requested the State Government to enhance the compensation announced to the families of those who lost lives in the fire accident at Srisailam Left Bank Hydro Electric Station to ₹5 crore each.
In a representation submitted to Chairman and Managing Director of TS-Genco D. Prabhakar Rao here on Monday, a delegation of the JAC sought increase in the ex-gratia considerably to the families of Genco engineers and employees as they have sacrificed their lives to safely shutdown the units and control the fire to minimise the damage to equipment and machinery.
“Their sacrifice should be recognised in true spirit as they have saved crores of rupees to TS-Genco at the cost of their lives. They were young and having a lot of service left. Their family members, who were dependent on them, are in deep shock and are worried over the future of their children. Though we could not save the lives of those brave hearts, we can support their family members to secure their lives,” JAC leaders P. Rathnakar Rao, N. Padma Reddy, Vazir, P. Sadanandam, Medi Ramesh, Bhanuprakash and others said in their plea to the CMD.
They stated that ex-gratia of ₹5 crore each and suitable job to one dependent in every victim’s family as per qualification would be appropriate gesture.
“The tragic incident is very rare and should be treated as special case in showing our support in all possible ways”, they said. Meanwhile, the Telangana Electricity Employees and Engineers Association has paid tributes to those who sacrificed their lives to save Srisailam LBHES by observing silence and lighting candles. President of the association N. Sivaji said it was unfortunate that the accident had claimed the lives of nine young engineers and demanded that each victim family be paid a compensation of ₹2 crore each.
They represented the matter to the CMD and Minister for Energy G. Jagadish Reddy.
The association has also asked the State government and the managements of power utilities to declare August 21 as the Electricity Employees Martyrs Day.
