Polavaram workers on warpath

Polavaram: The workers of Polavaram project, agonised with the attitude of the contracting agency, ‘Transstroy,’ which failed to pay their salaries for the past four months have decided to launch agitation.

Following the Central government’s acceptance of the new contractor ‘Navayuga Constructions’, the ‘Transstroy’ has axed more than 2,000 workers hailing from other states recently. The remaining workers at the site are starving, following the non-payment of their salaries.

The workers from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana staged a dharna at the work site, demanding the agency clear their arrears immediately as they were not interested in taking up work at the Polavaram project site. About 300 workers from these states have not received their salaries over the last four months. 

After the removal of workers by the ‘Transstroy’, the main contracting agency, the remaining workers launched the agitation. About 100 to 200 workers have left the place without taking their salaries. Now the workers who remained at the site also alleged that the contracting agency did not pay their salaries. 

Expressing their agony, they said that that they were not getting even water to drink and were starving for food. They also alleged that the Transstroy management has disconnected power supply to their sheds where they were residing over the last 20 days.   

The ‘Transstroy’ company has engaged thousands of workers from Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana and other states to work as daily wage labourers. They paid weekly wages to these workers at the time of starting the project work.

Over the last four months, the company has stopped the payment of the workers who are working at the Polavaram project and involved in concrete, cleaning, rod bending, centering works. They purchased the essential commodities from Polavaram village for the past few months with the weekly wages.

When they started the agitation, the Polavaram Sub-Inspector of Police Srihari Rao and the police force reached the site and told the agitating workers that no permission has been given to protest at the project site. With this, the workers told the Sub-Inspector that the contractor has to pay them salaries.  

“If the contractor gave us at least the traveling expenses, we will return to our native places. We won’t work here anymore”, they claimed. Sonubai, a woman worker from Jharkhand, said that the contractor did not pay the arrears for four months. She said the management was threatening them that it would foist police cases if they demand payment of wages.

Another women worker Rinki from Chhattisgarh said that they have to pay the local shop owners in Polavaram. However, the management was harassing them by not paying wages. Kalavati from Uttar Pradesh also said that she was facing lot of hardships as her salary was withheld.