Uttam meets agitating workers, supports strike

TPCC chief says the ongoing strike is not for any ordinary reason, but for the future of over 55,000 coal miners and their families

​Godavarikhani: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded that the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao fulfil his election promise of continuing Dependent Employment Scheme (DES) in Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

Accompanied by senior leaders, including MLA T Jeevan Reedy, former MP Ponnam Prabhakar, former Minister D Sridhar Babu, former Chief Whip Gandra Venkataramana Reddy and others, Uttam Kumar Reddy visited Godavarikhani on Thursday to interact with the SCCL workers who are on strike since June 15 demanding jobs for dependents.

Expressing his solidarity with striking trade unions, TPCC chief said the ongoing strike was not for any ordinary reasons, but for the future of over 55,000 coal miners working with the SCCL and their children. He said Chief Minister was never sincere about offering jobs to dependents of Singareni workers and therefore, he is unable to fulfil his major election promise even after three years.

Uttam Kumar also slammed K Chandrashekar Rao for not regularising contract workers in SCCL, which he promised during elections. After winning 2014 polls, K Chandrashekar Rao took a U-turn and even claimed in the Legislative Assembly that there were no contract workers in the SCCL and openly cheated more than 25,000 contract workers of Singareni.

The TPCC chief also condemned the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for taking a U-turn on the issue of open cast mining. He said K Chandrashekar Rao during elections had promised to ban open cast mining. However, he approved 16 open cast mines after coming to power in June 2014.

Similarly, he said the TRS government has failed to fulfil the promise of constructing permanent houses for Singareni workers. He said nearly 60,000 workers who participated in ‘Sakala Jana Samme’ during Telangana statehood agitation for 35 days were promised payment of wages for the strike period.

However, he said while the money had been paid to those in service, nearly 10,000 workers who participated in the agitation and retired later were denied payment.

Uttam Kumar said the TRS government had also failed to fulfil the promise of establishing a medical college and a NIMS-level super-specialty hospital for Singareni workers. The TPCC chief said the Congress would continue to support the SCCL workers and their agitation until State government fulfils all their demands.

Uttam Kumar accused Chief Minister of cheating the Singareni workers and their families, who voted in favour of TRS in the last election. However, by cheating them, Chief Minister himself has turned the Singareni belt against him and they would teach TRS a fitting lesson in the next elections.