Chittoor Cooperative Dairy employees seek settlement of pending wages

Tirupati: The employees of the closed Chittoor Cooperative Milk Dairy appealed the government to settle their wages pending since 2003. They also wanted the government to take them and also the dairy farmers, who supplied milk to the dairy, into confidence before finalising the liquidation of the dairy to do justice to them.

Speaking to media here on Thursday, Chittoor Cooperative Vijaya Dairy Employees Struggle Committee President Janam Gangi Reddy said that the Chittoor Dairy which was once the behemoth of dairies was shut down without notice on August 31, 2002, throwing the employees on the streets.

About 400 employees opted voluntary retirement while 150, who continued in service were left in lurch with no salary since 2003, he explained. These 150 employees left without any relief struggling to get the final settlement, he said urging the government to take steps for the final settlement of wages and other retirement benefits, till January 2019 to the remaining employees.

The liquidator appointed by the government in his report submitted to the High Court inflated the liabilities and lessened the assets of the dairy complicating the settlement of the pending wages and other benefits to the employees, he said informing that the total value of the assets was put at Rs 15.4 crore while the 25 acre sprawling site on which the dairy is located in the prime area of the city

alone fetch much more with the land value in the district headquarters increased manifolds. He demanded a probe into the assets and liabilities of the dairy to get the correct picture and sought the government to give away the vacant dairy land as house sites to the employees.

The government neither cleared the dues payable to the employees nor absorbed them in the two dairies Balaji Dairy in Tirupati and Madanapalle Dairy still running adding to the woes of the 150 Chittoor Diary employees, he said reiterating the payment of pending wages to the employees irrespective of the outcome of the cases pending before courts.

Employees Struggle Committee General Secretary K Dasarathan said the liquidator also failed to protect the immovable assets in Chittoor Dairy including machineries, furniture and other assets. He said that bowing to private dairies lobby more so Heritage Dairy, Chittoor Dairy was slow poisoned to death.

If the employees did not get the final settlement wages and other benefits, the struggle committee with the support of trade unions and political parties supporting the cause of Chittoor Dairy employees will besiege the Collectorate and also stage protest before the Heritage Dairy to press the government resolve the employees’ issues, he warned. Struggle Committee members were also present.