Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Trade union leaders petition YSR

By Our Staff Reporter

VISAKHAPATNAM, JAN. 25. Representatives of various trade unions and organisations met the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, on his visit to the city on Monday and submitted memoranda seeking a solution to their grievances.

The Port Master List (children of deceased and medically invalidated employees) candidates who have been organising relay hunger strike for the past 202 days seeking provision of jobs, decried the `apathetic attitude' of the port Chairman in redressing their grievance.

The aggrieved candidates said that they would be forced to commit mass suicide, if the Chief Minister did not do justice to them.

In a separate memorandum, the contract workers hired by the APTransco protested against lowering of the minimum age limit for junior lineman posts from 33 years to 25 years. They said that the move deprived several eligible unemployed youth and contract workers of a chance to get employment. They demanded filling of 423 junior lineman posts in the Eastern Power Distribution Company of AP Limited.

The Visakha City Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demanded cancellation of the agreement made by the previous government with the Larsen and Toubro for the diversion of Godavari waters to the city.

The CPI(M) executive committee member, Ch. Narasinga Rao, and its secretary, K. Lokanadham, felt that the execution of the project should be taken over by the Government.

Their other demands included laying of new bore wells in areas inhabited by the poor, withdrawal of the proposals to hike water tax and installation of water meters, giving up the drive to shift slum dwellers to city outskirts, sanction of house site pattas to the poor and utilising the old Central Prison land for construction of an open-air theatre and a park.

Minimum wages

The Indian National Trade Union Congress (Youth) sought implementation of minimum wages for workers in the unorganised sector, extension of ESI, medical, pension and housing facilities to them, expansion of the capacity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and provision of employment opportunities to persons displaced by various industries.

The honorary secretary of the Visakha Steel Employees Union, Padi Trinadha Rao, sought budgetary support of Rs.2,500 crores for VSP expansion and withdrawal of the `false cases' registered against trade union leaders during the TDP rule.

The convener of the Jana Vignana Vedika in Gajuwaka, M. Ramesh Kumar, sought the intervention of Dr. Reddy for setting up a 1,100-bed hospital, establishment of junior and degree colleges and a women's court in Gajuwaka.

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