Condemning the Centre’s move to corporatise all major seaports in India, staff members of V.O. Chidambaranar Port here on Tuesday staged demonstration in front of port’s administrative block. R. Selva Kumar, general secretary, Tuticorin Port General Staff Union (INTUC), who led the agitation, said unmindful of a massive workforce and pensioners relying on the port sector, the Centre was making attempts to corporatise the major ports after the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, announced the proposal in the budget 2015-16. Already fifty percent of works in the ports had been outsourced and now with this move, all ports would face security threats, nationally.
Port users and other stakeholders would suffer serious setbacks as ports once corporatised would tend to emerge as profit making entities and not as service providers. Moreover, the regulatory authority in the form of Tariff Authority for Major Ports (TAMP) would certainly cease to exist and there would emerge a monopoly approach in fixing rates, he said. The staff members also voiced their protest against the Finance Ministry’s proposal in the budget for utilising unused port lands for other purposes. The Port staff from thirteen unions took part in the agitation.