The GEBEA, however, said they would go ahead with the agitation.

On Wednesday, the association had served a strike notice on the Board, rejecting the State government's approval of the salary revision recommended for them in the Fifth Pay Commission report on the grounds that they were getting one per cent less than the field allowance sought. It also claimed that the government had not fulfilled oral commitments accepted by the Board.

An official release issued by the GEB on Thursday stated that all employees, officers and engineers associated with generation, transmission and distribution had been brought under the Act. The State government issued an administrative order to this effect on Wednesday.

Talking to Express Newsline, a GEB spokesman the invocation of the Act made the engineers' strike illegal. About 4,500 engineers have threatened to go on a work-to-rule stir from February 17, take mass casual leave on March 5 and go on an indefinite strike from the next day.

The spokesman further said that any person taking part in the strike or encouraging others to join in the strike could be suspended, fined up to Rs 2,000 or sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Moreover, any police officer can arrest anyone participating in the strike without producing a warrant.

Describing the GEBEA strike call as a bid ``to prevent 4.5 crore people from Gujarat from getting electricity'', the spokesman said the step was illegal and, in the wake of implemented ministerial decisions, unjustified.

Moreover, he said, after the revision, the salaries of GEB engineers would be higher than that of their counterparts elsewhere in the country. So they had no reason to grumble, the spokesman said.

Reacting to the inclusion of the GEB under the Essential Services, GEBEA secretary J C Marathe said that the engineers would go ahead with their plan to begin a work-to-rule stir from February 17. According to him, they had already given strike notice 14 days in advance, a necessary provision of the Act.