Vijayawada: The 11th general meeting of the NTR District Building Workers’ Union (affiliated to CITU) was held here on Sunday with N Pavan Kumar in the Chair.

Addressing the gathering, P Apparao, NTR District general secretary and A Venkateswara Rao, CITU NTR district president, stated that the union has been continuously protesting for the past five years to ensure the functioning of the welfare board, which was achieved through united struggle. They lamented that the state government has remained unresponsive despite their protests, even with the involvement of various associations, to save the construction sector from crisis.

They said that the policies of the previous government had plunged the construction sector into crisis, causing severe loss to workers. The previous government had issued Memo No 1214, halting all schemes and misusing the funds of the hard-won welfare board. They reminded the workers that the union’s persistent struggle against these policies had pressured the TDP, Jana Sena, and BJP alliance to promise the revival of the welfare board and the implementation of schemes in their election manifesto.

The leaders expressed their disappointment that even after a year in power, the new coalition government has failed to address the issues of construction workers or fulfil its promise to make the welfare board operational. They added that despite submitting petitions to officials, MLAs, ministers, and even the Deputy Chief Minister at all levels, the government continues to show extreme neglect toward resolving workers’ problems and implementing the promised schemes.

They also criticised the BJP government for repealing 29 labour laws, which were won after decades of struggle, and replacing them with four labour codes. This move, they said, would lead to the dissolution of all welfare boards and strip workers of their meager protections. Given these circumstances, they called upon all 36 types of workers in the construction sector to unite and fight to protect their welfare board.

CITU central city president K Durgarao urged all construction workers to be prepared to confront governments that undermine workers’ unity and infringe upon their rights and interests. He demanded that the state government immediately address the problems faced by construction workers.

The 38-member committee includes 17 office-bearers and 21 committee members were elected. The new office bearers are as follows. President: N Pavan Kumar, general secretary: B Govindu, honorary president: G Govindu, organising secretary: M Baburao, treasurer: M Ramu, vice-presidents: Y Satyanarayana, K Rajesh, B Satyanarayana, G Krishna, Bobbili Srinu, Chintala Srinivas, assistant secretaries: M Murali, L Assinayudu, D Durgaprasad, Sk Basha, K Rajesh, B Ramana Rao.

Ch Sudhakar Reddy and K Shankar (West City President and Secretary), VBS Raju (East City General Secretary), B Banerjee (Organizing Secretary), Y Subbarao and T Praveen (CITU Central City Vice Presidents), and others also participated.