CITU State Committee organized a meeting of workers of government and private hydroelectric projects

CITU State Committee organized a meeting of workers of government and private hydroelectric projects operated in Himachal Pradesh. It was decided in the meeting that workers from across the state working on hydroelectric projects will gather at Kalibari Hall in Shimla on 17 December 2023 and form a state-level organization for their demands. Vijendra Mehra, Prem Gautam, Ajay Dulata, Narendra, Lokendra, Surendra, Tilak, Sanjeev, Pawan, Rajindra, Vinod, Vicky, Tej, Joginder, Roshan Lal, Maheshwar, Shyam Sharan Soni, Tulsi and Ishri attended the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, CITU state president Vijendra Mehra and general secretary Prem Gautam said that the central and state governments are heavily exploiting the workers engaged in production and construction in government and private power projects. The government has not yet announced any separate salary schedule for thousands of laborers engaged in power generation in this area, due to which these laborers working in strategic areas are getting very low wages as per their work. Instead of providing regular employment to these laborers, they are being made to work on outsourced, contract, and fixed-term basis. No concrete policy is being made for their regularization. They are being deprived of EPF, ESI, and bonuses in many places. They are not being given tunnel allowance. Labor laws are not being followed in these projects. It had become mandatory to form a state-level union against such exploitation of workers. That is why it has been decided to hold the state convention in Kalibari Hall, Shimla. He has demanded that the government immediately resolve the demands of the workers of hydroelectric projects. He has warned the government that if the demands are not resolved then the movement will intensify.