CPI (M) workers picket Taluk office in Mangalore

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, April 19: Hundreds of CPI (M) activists led by B Madhava, the Secretary of CPI (M) DK district committee picketed the Taluk office on April 19, as a way to protest against the various shortcomings of the state and central governments.

 

 

 

 

In the protest,  B. Madhava, the secretary of CPI (M) DK district committee, said that the state and central governments comprise corrupt politicians, owing to which we have been forced to witness scams of large magnitude such as 2G scam, CWG scam, and Adarsh housing scam at the centre and various land scams and nepotism at the state level.  He accused the governments of failing to do anything about the rising prices.

Stating that the central government budget proposes to cancel the ration system, he said that the government is also ignoring unorganized laborers’ demands for minimum wages. He also alleged that the government is forcibly implementing a defective and unsound new pension scheme on unorganized labourers.

 

 

 

He urged the government to delink PDS entitlements from bogus planning commission poverty estimates; provide food security through legislation and supply of cheap foodgrains, pulses, sugar and cooking oil. Though the election manifesto promised to distribute rice at the rate of Rs 2 per kg, it has not been implemented so far in Karnataka. The rice is distributed to the citizens at the rate of Rs 2 per kg in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.  He said government should cut customs and excise duties on oil and reduce retail prices on petrol and diesel. Initiative should be taken to crackdown hoarders and black marketeers in the country to check price rise of essential commodities. 

Madhava urged the government to enact urban employment guarantee legislation with equal wages and rights for women. There is a need to remove the existing general ban on recruitment and fill existing vacancies in the SC/ST and quotas for the disabled in government services and public sector.  There is a need to review and revise the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to increase work days and wages. He urged the government to stop retrenchment of workers in the name of recession, he added.
He urged the government to implement comprehensive redistributive land reforms and stop reversal of land reforms and relaxation on ceilings. The government lands, barren land and waste lands must be distributed to the poor, he said.