AANSU and CITU take out protest rally through National Highway 17 in Boko

A CORRESPONDENT

BOKO: Members of the South Kamrup District Sadou Axom Nirman Sramik Union (AANSU) took out a protest rally from Chaygaon Cattle Market towards Chaygaon Revenue Circle office through National Highway 17 on Wednesday. The Chaygaon Police obstructed the protest rally on NH-17. Later, the Revenue Circle Officer arrived and received two memoranda from the protesters.

Nazrul Khandakar, general secretary of the South Kamrup District Sadou Axom Nirman Sramik Union (AANSU) said that one memoranda was for the Prime Minister to demand fulfilment of 14 demands of the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) and the other for the Labour Commissioner of Assam to demand fulfilment of five demands of AANSU.

Nazrul said, “In the Chaygaon Labour Inspector’s Office, various irregularities are going on. The Inspector is not regular in attending office due to which labourers have to wait for him for many days. As a result, many labourers have lost their daily wages. In the online registration system, the confusion over registration of workers’ names should be cleared.”

He also added, “The online renewal of identity cards should start as soon as possible and those labourers who submitted their applications for registration in 2021 should be given them identity cards.”

The other demands are that adequate staff should be employed in the Chaygaon Labour Inspector Office as soon as possible and the scrutiny meeting of the Labour Inspector’s Office should be held according to the rules.

More than 500 members of the AANSU and CITU took part in the protest rally. Soruj Sonowal, the revenue circle officer of Chaygaon, later arrived at the spot and accepted their two memoranda.

Meanwhile, CITU has 14 demands which should be fulfilled soon. “If the government does not fulfil our demands immediately, we will resume democratic movement very soon,” said Anil Das, general secretary, CITU South Kamrup unit.

The demands include prevention of price hike of essential commodities; implementation of the agreement signed between the United Krishak Morcha and the Central Government in 2021; repealing the four ‘labour codes’ prepared in the interest of the capitalists - the Code on Wages, Industrial Relations Code, Social Security Code and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code; fixing the minimum wage of workers at Rs 26,000 per month; among others.