Power employees say Yogi government, not UPPCL, should return Rs 2267 crore

New Delhi: The UP Power Employees Union has dismissed Power Minister Shrikant Sharma’s statement to ET that UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) will make good the losses of the employees in the Rs 2,267-crore DHFL scam. The Union’s chief says it is the UP government that must return them their money.
“How will UPPCL pay us back Rs 2,267 crore? This is amusing as the corporation is itself in the red with losses of over Rs 85,000 crore. In fact, any such proposal is unacceptable to us. The government should issue a gazette notification saying it will return our money and we appeal to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to intervene,” Shailendra Dubey, the coordinator of UP Electricity Employees Combined Sangharsh Samiti told ET. He said employees gheraoed the Shakti Bhawan in Lucknow on Thursday and did not allow a meeting of the UPPCL board to take place where a resolution was to be passed that UPPCL would pay the employees their retirement funds if the money is not recovered from DHFL. Sharma had told ET two days ago about this option.

“The UP government cannot brush away its responsibility by putting the onus on UPPCL to repay our money. This is being said to mislead us,” Dubey told ET. He also said that over 65% of the money in the UP Power Employees Trust - Rs 4122 Crore were invested in DHFL by the Trust till December 2018. "The meeting of the Trust has to take place every three months but it was not held for 30 months to hide this scam," Dubey said.

He said the first tranche of Rs 21 Cr was shifted to DHFL on March 17, 2017, Rs 33 Crore a week later, Rs 215 Cr on April 15, Rs 220 Cr on May 1 and Rs 169 Cr on May 19, 2017.