Declare Cuddalore as calamity-hit: CPI(M)

The party calls upon the Centre to lift ban on fresh recruitment and fill up several vacancies existing in the NLC

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has urged the government to declare Cuddalore as a calamity-hit district and allocate necessary funds for taking up mitigating measures.

In the 21st district-level conference held here recently with State secretary of the party G. Ramakrishnan in the chair, the re-elected district secretary T. Arumugahm read out a resolution passed in this regard.

The resolution said that the long coastline of the Cuddalore district was being battered time and again by storms and cyclone. The recent history had shown that it was also highly vulnerable to tsunami.

The major rivers such as the Gedilam, the Then Pennaiyar, the Manimutharu, the Vellar and the Kollidam were coursing through the district and during monsoon these rivers tend to overflow causing floods, inundating farm lands and habitations.

Appropriate action ought to be taken to safeguard the people and their property from the ravages of natural disasters, but it might require enormous funds which could be possible only when the district gets the tag of calamity-hit one.

In another resolution, the party called upon the authorities to start more number of industries to create job opportunities for thousands of unemployed educated youths.

Lift ban on fresh recruitment

In this regard the CPI (M) also called upon the Centre to lift ban on fresh recruitment and fill up several vacancies existing in the Neyveli Lignite Corporation. The government should prevail upon the NLC management to give permanent jobs to those who had provided land for the company’s expansion activities and also to pay an additional compensation of Rs. 25 lakh per acre for the already acquired lands. It sought regularisation of all the 10,000-odd contract workmen of the NLC and till such action was completed they must be given equal pay for equal work.

Taking up the cause of the minority community the party called for safeguarding the Wakf Board properties, clear the long-pending petitions for setting up places of worship, and improve the amenities in the madrasa-run schools.

In yet another resolution the party alleged the prevalence of untouchability in the district in various forms.

The party called upon the government to expedite the construction of a memorial for Swami Sahajananda at the site located close to the Nandanar girls’ school at Chidambaram.