Port Blair, Aug 22: The General Body meeting of INTUC, A&N Islands and its affiliated Unions from government, private and unorganized sector was held on Saturday at Gandhi Bhawan to constitute new committee.
The election was held under the chairmanship of Mr M Z Siddique, General Secretary, INTUC, A&N Islands and the members and representatives of Unions present unanimously re-elected Mr Kuldeep Rai Sharma as President of INTUC, A&N Islands, by reaffirming and reposing faith and confidence in his leadership as a trade unionist. Five Vice Presidents, five General
Secretaries, thirteen Secretaries, Organizing Secretaries, one Treasurer and thirty Executive Members were also elected to represent various trade unions affiliated to INTUC.
In his address, Mr Sharma expressed gratitude and congratulated the new committee members and assured to put best efforts in redressing the genuine demands of the working class by building consensus and fighting it out collectively to achieve the legitimate right of the workers. He further said the growing unemployment is one of the major concerns for the Islanders, which need to be tackled firmly and decisively. With over 4000 thousands posts lying vacant in the UT Administration of which nearly 80% being industrial posts, it will be the top most priority of the INTUC to impress upon the local administration to fill up these posts expeditiously and in transparent manner. Further, those who are for years together are engaged by the various departments of the A&N Administration on daily wage basis , contract basis or temporary basis need to given regular appointments ; the person appointed on contract basis are paid very less as compared to their counterpart serving on regular basis, hence contractual employees need to be paid at least basis pay plus dearness allowance to cope up with growing price rise and high cost of living in the Islands; government need to take formulate concrete policy for self employment generation in the sector of tourism , fisheries , local transportation with 100% job protection to the Islanders in private and government, he said.
At the outset, Mr Mohd. Rafi, General Secretary apprised the gathering about the achievements made by the INTUC under the leadership of Mr Kuldeep Rai Sharma and added that the constant selfless endeavor and determined efforts in addressing the grievances of the workers at the appropriate level could make it possible for INTUC to get resolved several genuine and legitimate demands of the workers. It is during the tenure of the Mr Sharma as President, INTUC, A&N Islands and with the support of UPA government at the Centre and UT Administration at state level several major grievances of the workers were got resolved of which few are getting regularized services of large number of daily rated workers engaged in various departments and establishments such as Electricity Department, Directorate of Transport, Port Blair Municipal Council, Port Management Board, AAJVS, Forest, etc. either against the existing vacancies or by creating supernumerary posts, over 300 daily rated workers of PBMC were conferred casual status by offering 1/30th of pay plus dearness allowance for 8 hours of work a day, fought for the legitimate right of the industrial workers and got the compensation awarded under the Workmen’s Compensation Act in case of deceased workmen of Government Dockyard, Electricity Department etc., played an instrumental role in getting enhanced the honorarium paid to anganwadi workers and helpers in excess of the rates fixed by the Central Government, persuaded vigorously with the Ministry of Environment and Forest, the matter of nonpayment/irregular payment of salary to the workers of ANI Forest & Plantation Development Corporation and got enhanced the annual budgetary allocation from Rs.5.5 crores to Rs.11.00 crores and then to Rs.17 Crores for the payment of salary, got introduced in the Directorate of Transport their payment of overtime allowance at double the ordinary rate to Drivers, Conductors & Checking Inspector and also got implemented the government policy of concurrently running of promotion scheme for Drivers and MACP, the wage agreement which was not revised from 2006 to 2012 was got revised for the seafarers employed in the Inter Island Sector Ships of A&N Administration etc. Mr Vemena, newly elected General Secretary, proposed the vote of thanks.
