CITU Demands Withdrawal of Electricity Bill 2025; Plans Nationwide Action

New Delhi: Decrying the government’s new draft Electricity Bill aimed at “more aggressive” privatisation of the sector, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has called for its immediate withdrawal.

In a press statement, CITU said electricity was a “social right, not a commodity” hence the government, through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025, should   stop all forms of privatisation and franchising in generation and distribution, protect federal powers and strengthen state utilities.

The central trade union said it would launch nationwide campaigns and coordinated actions with other trade unions and people’s movements to demand the “complete withdrawal of this anti-people Bill.”

Read the full press statement below:

Withdraw the Draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2025 – Protect the Public Electricity Sector and the Right to Electricity 

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) strongly opposes the newly released Draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025. Despite repeated failures to implement various versions of the Amendment Bill since 2014, the Modi Government is again attempting to push through the same discredited exercise in the name of so called reforms. The 2025 version of the Bill, more aggressive than earlier drafts, aims to privatise, commercialise, and centralise India’s power sector. It threatens public utilities, consumer rights, federalism, and the livelihoods of lakhs of electricity workers. If implemented, it will dismantle the integrated and socially driven electricity framework built over decades, handing profitable areas to private corporations while burdening state DISCOMs with losses and social obligations.

The Bill allows multiple distribution licensees in the same area using the same public-funded network, enabling private firms to cherry-pick high-paying consumers while public DISCOMs serve low-revenue rural and domestic consumers. This will cripple public finances, destroy cross-subsidies, and increase tariffs. Smart metering, promoted by the Centre, is the technological tool for this privatisation drive.

The proposed removal of cross-subsidies within five years will cause massive losses to public utilities and push tariffs un-affordably up for poor and rural consumers. Cross-subsidy is a social necessity, not an inefficiency. Its removal will deepen inequality and distress among farmers and workers.

By promoting speculative power markets, the Bill converts electricity—a basic human necessity—into a tradable commodity. Such deregulation will lead to price volatility, unreliable supply, and the weakening of public control over energy security.

The Bill gives the Central Government sweeping powers over state energy policy, including control over state regulatory commissions and renewable targets. It is a direct assault on the federal character of the Constitution and will hit opposition-ruled states already facing fiscal stress due to biased GST and fund allocations.

Privatisation and open access will lead to large-scale job losses, contractualisation, and outsourcing. By allowing private licensees in defence zones, the Bill also jeopardises national security in the name of “ease of doing business.”

CITU reiterates that the Bill is part of a wider neoliberal strategy to hand over the entire electricity supply chain—from generation to distribution—to private monopolies. Experiences from Odisha, Delhi, and other states prove that privatisation only increases tariffs, weakens service, and causes job losses.

CITU demands immediate withdrawal of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025 and guarantee of electricity as a social right, not a commodity - stop all forms of privatisation and franchising in generation and distribution, protect federal powers and strengthen state utilities.

 CITU calls upon all workers, farmers and people in general to unite in resistance. We will launch nationwide campaigns and coordinated actions with other trade unions and people’s movements to demand the complete withdrawal of this anti-people Bill.