After the deadline given by the labourers to restart manual loading in railway sidings in Joda lapsed, they held a demonstration at the Banspani siding where more than one thousand labourers participated.
Champua Sub-Collector SK Mishra held a meeting of the public representatives consisting of sarpanch and councillers in Joda.
Tehsildar Arun Ku Mallick, Excutive Officer PK Sahu, Rungta representative Biswajit Padhi, Palasa sarpanch Basudev Naik, counciller Tandra Saha, Ashok Naik, Berga Munda, Ranjit Bhanjdeo, Rajkumari Thappa, vice chairman SN Jena and representative MATOA and JATOA were present.
It was decided that the PRI representatives will give a fresh list of the labourers those who are eligible to work in the siding, and wait for the next meeting to be held at the Distinct Magistrate level. But on the other side, another group led by AICTU leader Manmohan Nayak and Joda Municipality Chairman Manjula Patra and others complained that even they had given memorandum to the Government in this regard six months back but they were not invited to the meeting.
Danguaposi Railway Division ARM Prasad Kumar told that no untoward situation occurred and loading of the material is going on
smoothly.
To maintain law and order problem at the railway siding Bambari IIC Banita Majhi, Bolani IIC Madhbananda Nayak and Joda IIC Madan Mohan Naik were deployed.
Notably, Joda being a mining area, labourers are mainly dependent on mining related jobs. But after the introduction of loading by machines in the railway siding, the labourers who were working in the siding are now thrown out of job and leading a very miserable lives.
In this regard a joint petition by the labourers was given to the railway authority to stop loading by machine and once again start manual loading to give job to the workers.