Consensus Baseline
The facts every account agrees on.
On 19 October the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) granted Eleven Power Private Limited a 25-year parallel distribution licence for the Gurugram and Nuh districts. The licence would let consumers there choose between the company and the state-owned Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) as the company's network reached them. Power sector employees began a three-day statewide strike at 10pm on 21 October. Gurugram, Faridabad and Nuh suffered long outages, and residents blocked roads in protest. On Friday 23 October, after a meeting in Panchkula with Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and Energy Minister Anil Vij, the government invoked Section 108 of the Electricity Act, 2003. It directed HERC not to "create, operationalise or effectuate any parallel distribution licence" anywhere in Haryana, and the unions called off the strike. A further meeting on the unions' remaining demands is set for 3 November.
Disputed Claims
The points the accounts contradict each other on.
The numbers are the accounts this piece is built from, listed in full at the foot of the page. Tap one to jump to it.
The licence amounts to privatisation of electricity distribution.
The unions call it creeping or indirect privatisation. Under the licence, DHBVN keeps supplying its consumers, and a second, regulated distributor enters alongside it.
The new licensee will serve all categories of consumers, not only the most profitable.
Eleven Power's petition commits to non-discriminatory supply and includes Nuh, with its rural and agricultural consumers, in the first phase. The government's directive cites objections about the selective acquisition of high-revenue consumers and the effect on cross-subsidies.
More than 5,000 power-cut complaints were registered in Gurugram within the first few hours.
Counts differ. One report gives over 5,000 complaints. Another, citing the Times of India, gives over 3,000 complaints and about 5,000 helpline calls. A third reports more than 3,000 complaints in the first 12 hours.
Perspectives
How each account frames the same story.
A Choice of Supplier
The licensee's case: a second regulated distributor gives consumers in a fast-growing region an alternative.
Section 14 of the Electricity Act allows more than one distribution licensee in the same area, a model already used in Mumbai. Eleven Power proposed to invest ₹4,717 crore between FY27 and FY31, with supply starting in FY28. Tariffs would stay under HERC's control, and about 80 per cent of the power would come from renewable sources. Its release says nearly 1.3 lakh applications for new connections or extra load, covering more than 2,400 MW, were pending across Haryana as of October 2025. The licence covers more than 8.3 lakh consumers. "This is a proud day for us and a landmark moment for electricity consumers in Gurugram and Nuh, who will now have a choice of distributor," said chairman Sunil Sachdeva. Some consumers welcomed the prospect of competition, Hindustan Times reported.
Defending the Public Utility
The unions' case: opening the state's most lucrative districts to a private rival will hollow out the public utility.
Gurugram and Nuh contain a large share of the state utility's homes, offices, shops and factories. The unions fear that a private firm drawing customers there would weaken DHBVN's finances and its ability to serve everyone else. Ravinder Ghanghas of the Haryana Power Engineers Association said this was the first time whole districts had been opened to parallel private distribution. He warned of consequences like the decline of BSNL, the state telecom operator. The government's own directive later listed the objections raised against the licence: minimum area of supply, capital adequacy, creditworthiness, technical capability, the selective acquisition of high-revenue consumers, the effect on cross-subsidies, duplicated infrastructure and stranded costs for the incumbent.
Who Bore the Blackout
Residents and businesses caught between the two sides describe the cost of the strike.
Power returned to many parts of Gurugram on Friday after nearly 24 hours, though residents reported low voltage. Pumps stopped, so water supply failed too. Workers reportedly switched off feeders and did not repair routine faults, the Daily Jagran reported, without naming its source. Deepak Maini of the Progressive Federation of Trade and Industry claimed losses of about ₹10,000 crore in Gurugram district alone, a figure no other report checks. He said generator power costs ₹22 to ₹23 a unit against ₹10 to ₹11 from the grid, and that MSMEs were hit hardest. His federation wrote to the government about "the absence of effective contingency arrangements to maintain an essential public service", and said the administration had told industry nothing about the strike.
The Government and the Regulator
Tracks how the state government handled a decision taken by a regulator that is meant to act independently.
Before the strike, Saini said the government would appeal against HERC's order before the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity. He said it was "completely in support of the unions" and would hire "a battery of lawyers as per unions' choice". The strike went ahead anyway. During it, Vij publicly offered talks on "all options", including action under Section 108. That is the route the government took. Its letter cites consumer and public interest and the financial implications for the state. It says the government is not examining whether HERC's findings were correct, but is giving the direction as a matter of policy. Vij said the government would also file a review petition.
Divergence
Where the accounts part company, and on what.
The strike ended without anyone deciding whether the licence was sound. HERC granted it after what the company calls a public process. The unions say it threatens the public utility, and the government has now told the regulator, in its own words as a matter of policy, not to put it into effect, while explicitly declining to judge HERC's findings. Two claims can be tested later. One is the licensee's commitment to serve rural Nuh. The other is the unions' warning about cross-subsidies. Neither will be tested if the licence never takes effect. The government also changed course during the week, from a promised appeal at the tribunal to a direction under Section 108 combined with a review petition. Neither of the industry voices reported here took part in the settlement: the trade federation says it was not even told about the strike, and none of these reports mentions consumer representatives at the Panchkula talks. Three questions remain open: whether a Section 108 direction can bind the regulator on a licence it has already granted, whether Eleven Power challenges the direction, and what is agreed at the 3 November meeting.
Sources
This article synthesises publicly available reporting for informational purposes. The perspectives summarised are paraphrased from the listed publications and reflect their respective editorial framing. Plural does not independently verify, endorse, or adopt the underlying factual claims, and provides this information on an 'as-is' basis without assuming liability for the accuracy of the original sources or the content of external links.
This summary represents an attempt at neutrality and may still contain bias; it is not presented as absolute truth.
AI is used exclusively to read and compare the independent reports behind each story, and to do nothing else. Programmatic guardrails ensure the system cannot introduce external details, infer motives, or express opinions. Automated testing immediately rejects any draft that violates these rules; failing drafts are discarded, never salvaged.
What survives this process is merely a draft, not a published piece. A human editor then scrutinises the text line by line against the original sources to minimise bias and verify accuracy. No content reaches a reader any other way.