KSEB employees say vaccination delay may hit service

Around 25,000 field workers face the risk of getting infected

There is considerable anxiety among employees of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) that any further delay in vaccinating the board’s field staff can lead to possible disruption in services, affecting the efforts of the government to contain the pandemic. While electricity supply has been declared an essential service by the State government, field workers, numbering around 25,000, ensuring uninterrupted power supply and attending to calls from customers are not getting vaccination on a priority basis, said Sibikutty Francis, working president of the Kerala Electricity Employees’ Confederation, INTUC, on Thursday. He said that four KSEB field staff members had already succumbed to COVID-19 so far and that field staff members should have been considered for priority vaccination after the drive was launched in the State along with health workers and police personnel.