A meeting was held near the entrance of Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant (VISP), a public sector undertaking, in Bhadravati on Saturday to mobilise support for the protest that will be held in Bengaluru on November 15 to oppose the disinvestment and privatisation policies of the Central government.
The Joint Action Front (JAF), a forum of the trade unions of PSUs including Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL), BEML Ltd., Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Ltd. and VISP have planned to hold the demonstration.
Addressing the meeting, Meenakshi Sundaram, a JAF functionary, said disinvestment was against the interests of the workers. Alleging that the Centre was planning to sell its equity in the PSUs for a throwaway price, he said that even profit-making PSUs were enlisted for disinvestment.
Jagadeesh J., president of VISP Workers’ Union, said that, more than 1,000 industrial workers from Bhadravati would attend the protest meet in Bengaluru. He pressed the Centre to invest funds for modernisation of loss making PSUs and thereby bring them on the path of profit.
D.C. Mayanna, a JAF functionary, alleged that in many cases, the private firms were buying stakes in PSUs not to run them in a viable manner but to make profit by selling their real estate properties.
