"National Democratic Alliance Government Trying to Gag Voice of Workers" says Tapan Sharma,Vice President of Centre for Indian Trade Unions in Doomdooma,Assam

A Correspondent

Doomdooma, July 25: To protest against the anti-worker and anti-peasant policies of the Central and State governments, a joint convention of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and All India Kishan Sabha(AIKS) was organized at Doomdooma recently by CITU, Tinsukia District Committee. The meeting, which was jointly presided over by Maneswar Barman, president of Asom Krishak Sabha Tinsukia district, and Mathura Nath Sharma, vice-president of CITU, Tinsukia District Committee, was addressed by Tapan Sharma, CITU State secretary. In his address, Tapan Sharma said that to gag the voice of the workers, the NDA government was bringing reforms to existing labour laws. Make a survey of the prevailing situation in the country between 2014 and 2017, the plight of the people had increased manifold due to skyrocketing prices, he added.

He pointed out that there were 1.6 crore workers and employees in the country. Against this, the number of tea workers in Assam was 11 lakh while the number of construction workers was 10 lakhs and that of Asha, Anganwadi and Randhan workers was 2.67 lakh. “Our present State leaders talk about jati-mati-bheti but have our parliamentarians ever raised the issues that concern the workers and common people in the Parliament?” he said. Sharma said that by now 73 per cent of country’s wealth had gone into the hands of the big capitalist groups, only 27 per cent of its share was with the Central government. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants us to think about Hindutta only but it is his duty to save the country,” he added.

He cautioned that the fate of the future generation would be doomed if the latest attempt of the government to implement the fixed term employment became a reality. The meeting was also addressed by CITU Tinsukia district secretary Nagen Chutia, CPI (M), Tinsukia District secretary Dronakanta Charingia Phukan and representatives of various worker and peasant organizations. The significant aspect of the meeting was the decision to launch a disobedience movement on August 9 in Tinsukia as part of its programme to dislodge the present BJP-led NDA government.

Altogether 14 resolutions were adopted like waiving all kinds of loans of peasants and workers, fixation of prices of agricultural products as per recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission, providing monthly pension of Rs 5,000 to agricultural workers and peasants, to recognise flood and erosion problem of Assam as national problem, fixation of Rs 350 as daily wage of tea-workers and Rs 18,000 minimum monthly wage for contract workers, withdrawal of Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2016, stopping privatization of public sector companies and withdrawal of the decision of fixed term employment.