A three-day annual conference of the Odisha Rajya Bidyut Shramik Karmachari Sangha concluded here on Tuesday.
Over 1,000 delegates from different electrical divisions of CESU, NESCO, SOUTHCO and WESCO participated in the State level meeting, which was inaugurated by leader of Opposition in legislative Assembly Bhupinder Singh. PCC president Jayadev Jena was the chief guest and Rajya Sabha member and INTUC vice-president Ramachandra Khuntia the guest of honour.
Khuntia lamented that the BJD Government is not sensitive to the problems of the electricity workers. “In the name of privatisation, the workers and employees are allowed to be exploited by the private companies. The electrical workers engaged in construction of tower lines are not getting minimum wages, provident fund and health allowances. The Government should take proper steps and direct the concerned departments to ensure welfare of the workers,” he said and warned of unrest by the workers if the Government continues to be apathetic to their plight.
Jena also raised the issue of the exploitation of workers by Reliance after its entry into the energy sector. He said that though the agreement with Reliance had already lapsed, the private company was still controlling the affairs in the sector.
The Government has left the company scot free despite allegations of irregularities against it. The company is not paying proper wages and minimum safety equipment to the field workers, he told.
Singh said the Central Government introduced the Rajiv Bidyut Yojana in 2005 and targeted it to be completed in 2012, but, knowingly, the Odisha Government did not take any step to provide free electricity to all BPl families. On the contrary, the royalties and taxes collected from the Rajiv Bidyut Yojana are pumped into the State-sponsored Biju Jyoti Yojana, he alleged.
On the second day, a massive rally was taken out in the coal city. An election was held for formation of State level new governing body. While Padmanav Padhi was elected as president, Akshaya Kumar Tripathy was elected as general secretary. Dinabandhu Mohanty was elected as working president, while Khagapati Sahu from WESCO, Durgamadhab Acharya from SOUTHCO and Sudhakar Das from CESU were elected as vice presidents. Joint Secretaries are Pravat Kumar Das (NESCO), Daniel Bag (WESCO), Prafulla Kumar Pattanaik (SOUTHCO) and Malaya Kumar Nanda (CESU). Raghunath Chinara was elected as chief organising secretary and Prabhat Kumar Tripathy as treasurer. The election was coordinated by Angul electrical division secretary Bikash Sahu.
tIJIJin@IJ of a Maoist on Sunday. The police got a diary from Pradhan which helped them to bust the Maoist camp, he added.
“But unfortunately Pradhan died on Monday and he was sent to Brahmapur for postmortem,” said the DIG.
Ganjam SP Ashish Singh and Kandhamal SP Kanwar Bishal Singh said seven to ten members of Maoists of Nikhil, Krishna and Sunil group of Ghumusar division fled from the spot.