ONGOLE: The Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Workers Union has asked salt workers to unite and fight to secure minimum wage and other facilities.

Addressing a meeting of salt workers here on Monday, former MLA Thavanam Chenchaiah asked the Government to assign 70,000 acres of wasteland available on the coast in Prakasam district to small farmers for salt production. Though the land had been classified as grazing land, the saline land remained fallow and useless for cattle, he observed.

Salt workers narrated their woes. They said the Government had allotted 100-120 acres of land to each entrepreneur who engaged workers for producing, carrying and packing salt. While men are paid a wage of Rs. 60 per day, women got only Rs. 40 a day. They are required to work for eight hours a day under hazardous circumstances without basic amenities like drinking water, rest rooms etc.

No job security

There is no security of employment. They get neither provident fund nor medical facilities.

One small farmer, Krishna Reddy, said men and women work on salt farms because they have no other employment in coastal villages for want of agricultural lands. He said as there is no bridge across Buckingham canal, people of Binginapalli faced many problems to reach the mainland. Men and women had to wade through waist-deep water to reach the mainland. They constantly live in fear of natural calamities like cyclone and tsunami.

He asked the Government to construct a bridge across Buckingham Canal at Binginapalli village. He wanted the government to assign the land to small farmers for salt production. Though the Central Government had directed the salt officials to pay Rs. 2,500 to each salt farmer as tsunami relief, most of them did not get it till now. The meeting resolved to ask the Government implement minimum wage for salt workers, provide footwear and spectacles necessary for them to work on salt farms safety and extend medical facilities to them. It also asked the Government to construct pucca houses for salt workers.

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