Powercom staff protest

Tribune News Service

Mohali, October 6

Members of the Powercom and Transco Contract Employees Union, Punjab, protested against the state government in front of the Labour Commissioner’s office for the second consecutive day today.

Balihar Singh, state president of the union, Chaudhary Singh, senior vice-president, Rajesh Kumar, vice-president, Ajay Kumar and Shiv Sankar, joint secretaries, said Powercom chairman A Venu Prasad had invited them for the meeting, but nothing came concrete out of it. The meeting of VK Janjua, Principal Secretary, Department of Contract Workers, on Monday also remained fruitless.

The union leaders said so far, eight meetings had been held with top officials of Powercom management and Labour Department, including Labour Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu. They alleged that the Labour Minister had assured the higher authorities to accept all legitimate demands of the contract employees, but officials of the departments were deliberately dilly-dallying the issue.

They said their main demands included revocation of retrenchment policy, adequate compensation to the families of accident victims and jobs to the dependents of the deceased workers.

Mohali SDM Jagdeep Sehgal reached the protest site late and appealed to the contract workers to call off the protest. He assured them to hold a panel meeting with top Punjab Government officials on Wednesday, but the contract workers did not relent and continued their protest.