The port and dock workers will go for two-day sit in hunger strike in all major ports on July 25 and 26 in protest against the liberalized policies adopted by the Centre in the port sector.
A decision to this effect was taken at national working committee meeting of Water Transport Workers Federation of India at Kolkata, a press release said.
T.Narendra Rao, general secretary of the Federation alleged that several steps being initiated by various major port authorities at the directives of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways is highly detrimental and undermining very existence of major ports being a public entity.
The Government is planning to divest its public ownership by handing over the ready built valuable assets and facilities such as its cargo handling terminal to corporates under National Assets Monetisation Pipeline projects.
He said in a statement that the overcapacity creation in major ports is happening at large scale thereby existence of several major ports are at stake in terms of cargo volume, low draft and financial crunch.
Several other genuine issues of port and dock workers are unsettled till today and the committee considered all these issues before taking a decision for the industrial action by joining hands with other sister organizations, he said.