CHENNAI: A dominant body of the major port's workforce wants Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to impress upon his party colleague and Union Shipping Minister T. R. Baalu to give up port privatisation proposals.

It instead would like Mr. Baalu to follow in the footsteps of Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who, without privatising the organisation, is credited with improving its performance on various fronts.

Repeat NLC move

"Ports have the money and expertise to do [expansion] on its own," declared S. R. Kulkarni, president of the All India Port and Dock Workers' Federation.

Mr. Kulkarni said this in response to queries, at a press meeting here on Thursday, about the Federation's opposition to privatisation and corporatisation of the ports.

He recalled that the influential role of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, during the Neyveli Lignite Corporation disinvestment controversy, led to the Centre shelving the disinvestment programme itself.

The party could play a similar role in stopping privatisation of the port operations.

Not in country's interest

General secretary of the Federation P. Mohammed Haneef said privatisation of the ports was also not in the interest of the country from a security perspective and resulted in exploitation of labour.

Thanking Mr. Baalu for granting 17.5 per cent ad hoc bonus to around one lakh port and dock workers, Mr. Kulkarni urged the Shipping Minister to obtain within a month the Union Cabinet's approval for implementing an agreement under which the workers would receive 20 per cent productivity-linked reward in lieu of bonus.

The payment, as per the memorandum of understanding between the Indian Ports' Association and recognised federations of the workers, was to commence from 2002-03 onwards.

Wage committee

The Federation leaders also underlined the need for constitution of the Bipartite Wage Negotiating Committee as the current wage settlement, in vogue since 1997, would expire this year-end.

The Federation, Mr. Kulkarni said, also wanted the tenure of the next wage settlement to be for four years.

Some of the other demands, which the Federation wants to be addressed, are appointments in the ports on compassionate grounds, merger of 50 per cent dearness allowance with basic pay and not allowing sale of land owned by major ports to private individuals and builders.

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