Port, dock workers threaten to go on strike on July 25, 26

Vijayawada: Port and dock workers at Visakhapatnam and other major ports in India have threatened to go on strike on July 25 and 26 in protest against privatisation policy being implemented by the BJP-led NDA Government under the National Asset Monetisation Plan and emulating landlord port model..

Unions of all major ports will join hands independently or join with other sister organisations for two days by mobilising workers on a big scale before the administrative offices to highlight their viewpoint.

The decision for protests was taken at the national working committee meeting of Water Transport Workers Federation of India (WTWFI)--a central platform of trade unions functioning in 12 major ports at its meeting in Kolkata on July 4 and 5. The meeting took stock of the situation prevailing in Indian major ports in the background of ongoing liberalised policies pursued by the Union Government.

The committee noted with serious concern that several steps being initiated by various major port authorities at the directives of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways is highly detrimental and undermines the very existence of major ports being a public entity.

WTWFI national general secretary T. Narendra Rao told Bizz Buzz on Monday that the government is contemplating divesting its public ownership by handing over the ready-built valuable assets and facilities such as its cargo handling terminal to national and transnational companies. There is an attempt to convert all the government-owned major ports into landlord ports so that all the infrastructure can be given on lease to private investors. Surplus lands and other assets are being handed over to private parties under the National Assets Monetisation Pipeline

He said the situation has created an unbalanced condition and created an upperhand for the private operators in the major ports like Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Mumbai, Cochin, Kolkata and other places. It also created a monopoly situation for the selective private port operators, he alleged.

The control of the vast Indian coast spread over 7,517 km in nine coastal States is crippled by private operators. This is not only detrimental to the economic interest of the nation but also may cause severe threats to the national security as the ports are described as second row of defence, he contended.

It is also important to be noted that the overcapacity creation in major ports is happening on a large-scale, thereby the existence of several ports has been put at stake in terms of cargo volume, low draft and financial crunch. The government reiterated that the very intention of the Major Port Authorities Act 2021 repealing the Major Port Trust Act 1963 was to make its structural change from “service model ports” to “landlord model” and ultimately divesting overall control on the major ports, the union leader stated.