The Water Transport Workers Federation of India has urged the Shipping Ministry and the port managements to review and reconsider all the BOT/BOOT/PPP projects already awarded at major ports.
Most of these projects are violating its agreed revenue share to the ports and, thereby, incurring huge loss of income of the ports, T. Narendra Rao, General Secretary of the Federation, alleged in a statement issued here.
On the present situation in Haldia port, he said workers have made an appeal to Port Management to speed up the process of mechanising all the berths in the Haldia Dock Complex so as to make the ports operational and economically viable.
‘Demands Day’
According to Rao, the affiliated unions of the Federation have also observed ‘Demands Day’ at all the major ports in the country demanding early wage settlement for the port and dock workers in the next meeting to be held at New Mangalore Port on January 4 and 5.
The Federation demanded full implementation all the agreed items of categorisation and classifications committees’ report of Afzul Purkar instead of issuing orders to certain categories of workers part by part.
The Indian Ports Association and five federations had already arrived at a settlement in this regard in September 2009, he said.
The workers also reiterated their earlier stand that the productivity linked reward (Bonus) to the port and dock workers would be acceptable at the national level not on the basis of individual port performance as suggested by the Ministry of Shipping.
The unions have also requested the IPA and the Ministry for submitting such an alternate revised proposal in the meeting called on December 20 at New Delhi.