BJP leaders of the Chhatrapur area led by former Zila Parishad president Dharanidhar Behera, former block chairman Surath Pahan and several lawyers like BJP legal Cell president Pradip Padhi, Narasingh Padhi, Kali Das and N Rajendra Kumar submitted a memorandum to the district Collector and Superintendent of Police at Chhatrapur on Saturday demanding a review of the employment situation in the proposed Tata Steel project, titanium project and Gopalpur Port in Ganjam district.
The memorandum alleged that hundreds of innocent and poor farmers who have given their lands for establishment of these industries in the district being lured and assured with prospective job offers and economic prosperity of the region now find the promise to be a distant dream as these industries are not providing regular employment but continuing their buildings and myriad infrastructural works by engaging contractual labourers violating labour laws.
The leaders also alleged that even some of these companies engage groups of antisocials who are fighting with each other reportedly to get protection money from some of these industries, resulting in the breakdown of law and order machinery in the region.
They also alleged that the district administration and the labour Department are totally silent about the illegal activities carried out in the proposed plants. The leaders also demanded employment to local youths on a priority basis, publication of open advertisements in the local media showing the vacancies, merger of industrial areas under the Chatrapur NAC so as to enable the NAC fetch revenue for its local development and maintenance of law and order in the region, failing which the BJP would resort to agitation to achieve the genuine demands.
While in Odisha, vast numbers of engineers and technicians are waiting for employment, several such industries operating their plants in different parts of the State have reportedly employed 40 per cent of their workforce, including labourers, from outside the State as our elected representatives and the State Government are ineffective, defunct and unaccountable to public, said a senior citizen.