Hosting community meals to SCCL workers a diversion tactic: Trade unions

It might be noted that the government directed the company management to host community meals to the employees in its eleven areas in the State on Thursday and Friday.

Khammam: The Congress government’s decision to host community meals for the SCCL workers as part of Dasara Navaratri celebrations has been drawing criticism from different trade unions.

It might be noted that the government directed the company management to host community meals to the employees in its eleven areas in the State on Thursday and Friday. An amount of Rs 94 lakh was sanctioned for the purpose.

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However, Bharatitya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) affiliated Singareni Coal Mines Karmak Sangh described hosting of community meals as a tactic to divert the employees’ attention from the issues that have been troubling them.

Speaking to Telangana Today, the sangh leader Madhav Naik said there was a tradition of Singareni workers celebrating Dasara Navaratri and hosting community meals by making contributions. The workers did not ask the government to do the same.

It was a shame that the government was boasting about its move by spending the company money as a welfare measure. If the government was sincere towards workers welfare it should clear Rs 33, 000 crore dues pending to be paid to SCCL from Genco and Transco, he said.

If Rs 33,000 crore was paid to Singareni and that money deposited in the bank could earn Rs 3000 crore as interest, of which Rs 900 crore could be paid towards 33 percent share for the workers.

Thus every worker would get a bonus profit share of at least Rs 2 lakh in addition to the profit share currently paid to the workers, Naik explained. The recognised and representative unions AITUC and INTUC were cheating the workers and fully failed to protect their interests, he added.

Naik alleged that the Congress government was using SCCL as its ATM. Issues like offering super specialty health services to the workers, quality education to worker’s children as well as income tax reimbursement as promised by Congress were not addressed.

CITU’s Singareni Collieries Employees union leader V Srinivas said that the management’s image was set to be damaged with the community meals. Instead, the company should have distributed one kilogram sweet to each worker and it could have made their families happy, he noted.