GNDTP staff show black flags to Finance Minister

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 17

Regular employees of the Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant today showed black flags to Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal as the latter was holding public meetings in the city.

The employees assembled near Bibiwala Chowk where the minister was scheduled to address a meeting. They waved the flags as soon as the Finance Minister arrived.

To make sure that the situation don’t get out of control, police personnel restricted the protesters and didn’t allow them to reach near the place where the minister held the meeting. Later, the employees cancelled their plan to go to another location, where the minister had to hold a meeting.

“The public may get tired and feel embarrassed by staging protests but the leaders don’t feel embarrassed. They have the courage to step out in the public domain after retracting from their promises. They have excuses for every promise that they don’t fulfil,” the protesters said.

The GNDTP employees also stated that they had approached the Sessions Court on the issue of transfer orders of more than 200 skilled and unskilled workers of the plant. “The court has asked the GNDTP Chief Engineer to submit a clarification over the issue as the transfers allegedly did not follow the transfer policy,” said union leader Gursewak Singh.

He further stated that for now, the transfer of the employees had been stayed till at least March 1, when the Chief Engineer has to submit the clarification.

“After deciding to completely shut down the thermal plant, the government is now pressurising the thermal plant management and PSPCL to adjust all employees, wherever possible,” he added.

“Already facing the wrath of the employees, the government is now wary of retrenching the employees. As part of large-scale adjustment, some employees have been assigned work which they have never done. Such transfers are not acceptable as the thermal plant employees should not be given field jobs. We were left with no option but to move court,” Gursewak said.