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BILT closure taking toll on workers lives.
The closure, delay in re-opening of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) factory and non-payment of wages for about one-and-a-half- year is taking the toll on the lives of workers.
Mangapet (Warangal): The closure, delay in re-opening of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) factory and non-payment of wages for about one-and-a-half- year is taking the toll on the lives of workers.
As a result, the workers of the factory located at remote village Kamalapur of Mangapet mandal in Warangal district are undergoing severe financial distress.
Their lives have been on tenterhooks ever since the factory was closed temporarily on April 3, 2014 and then permanently on January 21, 2015.
The State government in last April came forward to hold talks with BILT management for the factory revival. After prolonged talks in last December, the management consented to revive the production much to the pleasure of the workers.
The happiness of the workers proved to be short lived. Despite the government’s offer of financial assistance in the form of subsidies to the tune of Rs 210 crore for a period of seven years, the company failed to restart production.
The financial crisis the workers facing is such that they could not afford to have medical services and losing lives. A 47-year-old electrician at the factory, K Parameshwar Rao, died of heart stroke on Wednesday late evening.
He was said to have undergone by-pass surgery nearly 10 years ago. Since two months, he stopped using medicines, which he could not afford anymore.
‘Though he was experiencing pain in the heart for the past few days, we lacked the money to take him to hospital. After collecting some amount from relatives, we started to a hospital in Hyderabad,’ said his wife Uma.
‘He suffered excruciating pain while reaching Eturunagaram and we rushed him to a local area hospital but in vain. He died within a few minutes after reaching the hospital,’ said the deceased worker’s friends, G Narayana Rao and P Prabhakar.
Majority workers here are facing same kind of situation what Parameshwar Rao faced, they said.
‘Most of them exhausted their savings, provident fund amounts. As the BILT workers, we are denied white ration cards. We could not buy medicines even if fallen ill, forced to defer of children’s marriages and could not pay for our children’s education’.
The deceased worker is survived by wife Uma and three children. Of them the elder daughter got married while the two others - a son and daughter are still studying.
‘None knows their future,’ the workers lamented and appealed the government to act fast to before someone else loses his life.
Angered at the death of Parameshwar Rao, the workers have staged a demonstration. The workers union leaders Ch Chokka Rao and others said they met Deputy Chhief Minister K Srihari at Medaram on Wednesday, who told them to meet him next week.
By: James Edwin
