|
'Forum Against New Coal Policy' organised a Seminar on Privatisation and
closures of public sector units at Sukumar Hall, Ashis-Jabbar Nagar (Asansol),
Bardhaman district, West Bengal on 6th and 7th February. Sukumar Banerjee was
the first worker martyr of this industrial belt stretching from Durgapur in West
Bengal to Dhanbad in Bihar, when he was run over bsa truck driven by an European
officer while putting blockade on the gate of Raniganj Paper Mill as back as on
1937. Ashis and Jabbar were martyred by police firing in this belt during the
famous food movement of 1966 which shook all over Bengal and prepared the ground
fon Naxalbari Peasants uprising a year later.
This industrial belt is now vibrant with another phase of workers movement as
the central government has decided to close down 64 collieries of Eastern
'coalfields Ltd., all of which are situated in this belt and another 8 PSUs, 5
of which are situated in West Bengal and 3 in this belt only. This attack is the
biggest on workers of a single belt threatening the bread and livelihood of
nearly one lakh workers and some 5 lakh of their family members along with tens
of lakhs of people dependent on the economy of this region.
Forum against new coal policy was formed to organise the workers and put up
resistance against these attacks coming as it is in the wake of New Economic
policy adopted by Narasima Rao Government in 1991 and continued by the
successive two United front Governments and now by the BJP led coalition
Government. This forum was first launched at Chandrapur of Maharastra by June
'98 when workers from Western Coalfields, Maharastra, Eastern Coalfield of West
Bengal-Bihar and Singareni Coalfields of Andhra Pradesh gathered in a convention
to condemn the New Coal Policy of the central Government which envisaged to
close down all loss making collieries and retrench 2 lakh workers out of
6,76,000 workers of coal India Limited.
This Seminar was inaugarated by Kanchan Kumar of AILRC from Delhi. Subsequently,
different speakers spoke on subject relating to privatisation and closures of
PSUs. Firstly, one member of the APDR (association for the Protection of
Democratic Rights) team which visited one colliery of Asansol to be closed by
Government, spoke on their experience of how rampant mismanagement, corruption
and faulty planning is responsible for the losses of collieries. These followed
the reports of similar degeneration in the power-geasating State Electricity
Board (SEB) governed by West Bengal government. Another speaker spoke of the
reasons behind and effects of privatisation of Indian PSUs as it is directed and
controlled by-the IMF-World Bank-WTO at the instance of the imperialist big
brothers and the MNC/TNCs which are now ruling the world. Then reports of
struggles of workers against the privatisation and closures of PSUs were
presented by the Delhi TU leader and leader of the 'MAMC Banchao Committee'
(save MAMC committee) which is formed to stop the designs of the central
Government to close down the mining and allied machinery corporation of
Durgapure employing about 5000 workers. The workers of the factory have come out
of the established TUs including CITU and INTUC and took up the programme of
Rail Roko on 8th February (which was anyhow suspended due to Bangla Bandh on the
same date).
With this and cultural programmes the first day sessions were closed. On 7th Feb
in the first session a paper was presented on New Coal Policy and its effects on
workers from Western coalfield comrades followed by "The Present situation of
ECL" in the wake of the Government decision to close down 64 collieries
presented by AIPRF, Asansole and finally "Changes of Labour Laws in post-liberalisation
period" presented by Susan Ibrahim, an Advocate from Bombay. Around 300 workers
employees and youths of the colliery areas participated in the seminar. Some 50
volunteers worked overtime to make the seminar a success.
In the last session, a mass meeting was organised on the Municipal ground of
Asansol where different speakers spoke against the anti-workers policies of the
Government and called on the workers to organise and build up their genuine
class organisations and take up the challenge thrown by the Government in the
form of closure and privatisadon of lot of PSUs, cultural programmes from
Nishantika, West Bengal and Avibyakti, Bihar enthused the gathered people at the
ground.
But the most important part of the programme were two campaigns by students and
youths for about one month in the collieries covering almost all the collieries
listed for closing down. These campaignengs geaterated very work response among
the colliery workers of both Bengal and Bihar. The established TU leaders and
colliery management many times tried to stop the campaigning by threatening the
workers and trying to disturb the campaign team. But each time the workers
defied the red-eyes of management and TU leaders and stood like a nock
surrounding the team members. 20-500 workers attended the various campaigns.
They fed the team members and arranged for their shelters whenever necessary.
Altogether some 40 members, both male and female, participated in the two
times campaigning. The team members also get very much enthusiasm seeing the
response of the workers.
The colliery workers expressed their eagerness to get organised freshly and
throw away the old. TUs. The members of Forum against New coal policy are also
seemed to be ready to take up the challenge of the situation. And hence a ground
is being prepared in the vast industrial belt of
Durgapur-Ranigunj-Asansol-Dhanbad for a life and death struggle which may
inspire the workers throughout India in their struggles for a new world order.
|
