The anti-worker, anti-farmer and pro-corporate policies of the BJP government will ultimately impact common people and they should be made to understand this for the success of the forthcoming nationwide general strike, the speakers said at a national seminar against privatisation.
The seminar was organised, under the aegis of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions(CITU) at the Visakhapatnam Public Library here on Tuesday.
General Secretary of Water Transport Workers Federation of India T. Narendra Rao alleged that the four labour codes, brought out by the BJP government, were meant to help the MNCs and corporate groups, which had helped the party before the last general elections. The Centre had failed to comply with the demand of the trade unions to provide ₹7,500 as compensation for each worker, affected by the first wave of COVID-19, but announced a ‘stimulus package’ for the corporate companies. He wondered for whom the government was working.
He described National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), brought out to monetise public assets, as a pipeline to transfer money directly to the corporate groups. He called upon the CITU workers to expose the ‘politics behind the policies of the BJP government’, which would make the lives of the common people ‘miserable’ through increased cost of goods and services.
CITU national secretary Prasanta N. Chowdhury said that while the objective of the Electricity Supply Act of 1948 was not to make profit but to supply electricity to all parts of the country, the present Electricity Bill intends to privatise the power sector on the plea of providing cheaper electricity through private players. It was a known fact that no private player would provide electricity at a lower cost. He said that only united struggles could defeat the pro-corporate policies of the Union government.
CITU State president Ch. Narasinga Rao alleged that the BJP government was bent on ‘destroying the PSUs’. The Centre had not made any investment on Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) after 1991 but was now planning to go for strategic sale of the plant. The struggles organised by the workers over the years have checked the privatisation efforts of the successive governments since 1991. He called for another ‘struggle’ to save the PSUs.
CITU Greater Visakha city committee general secretary M. Jaggu Naidu presided. CITU leader P. Mani also spoke.
