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Labour unions, opposition parties stage protest
Demanding the minimum wage hike for the gram panchayat workers in the Telangana State, four labour unions on Wednesday along with the supporting Opposition parties staged a demonstration at Dharna Chowk near Indira Park in Hyderabad. Since 43 days, both the State government and panchayat workers have stuck to their respective positions not showing any signs of relenting.
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Hyderabad: Demanding the minimum wage hike for the gram panchayat workers in the Telangana State, four labour unions on Wednesday along with the supporting Opposition parties staged a demonstration at Dharna Chowk near Indira Park in Hyderabad. Since 43 days, both the State government and panchayat workers have stuck to their respective positions not showing any signs of relenting.
Addressing the gathering, the Left party leaders alleged that the State government had made every possible attempt to suppress the ongoing strike by the contract and gram panchayat workers. They said the panchayats were responsible for payment of salaries. There is a vast variation among the salaries paid in various panchayats, depending on their size, and their income.
In remote panchayats where the income is low, sanitation workers are paid as low as Rs.500-800 per month, while the panchayats adjacent to municipalities pay about to Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000. The labour unions blamed the government for the deaths of 16 panchayat workers in the State. They were not natural deaths and were murders by the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government, the Left leaders said.
The Grama Jyothi programme would only benefit the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s family but not the poor panchayat employees, remarked CITU leader Sai Baba. The State government was neglecting the strike and treating them as stray dogs, he felt. The union leaders also took severe objection on KCR's recent remarks that the strikes were ‘useless’. The unions reminded that it was the same useless workers who have voted him to power.
Extending support to the ongoing strike, CPI (M) State Secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram asked why the government couldn’t pay the salaries to workers when it could pay to the sarpanch and other employees of the panchayat. The Telangana State government which promised to increase panchayat maintenance funds from the present 30 per cent to 50 per cent did not provide any clarity in wage hike of the agitating workers, he said.
CPI State Secretary Chada Venkat Reddy said the Panchayat Raj Minister K Taraka Rama Rao did not visit a single village for the past 15 months. The CPI leader demanded the government to resolve the ongoing issue and warned of storming the State Assembly during the upcoming session if it fails to resolve.
Many leaders including Telangana TDP State president L Ramana, Forward Block leader Banda Surender Reddy, CPL (ML) New Democracy leader Botha Veeranna and many others participated in the protest.
