TUTICORIN: The state executive has ordered the shutdown of the Sterlite copper plant in Tuticorin, and the way forward for nearly three,000 direct and contract workers and their families is at stake. Apart from the financial implications, they're grappling with the mental agony of being treated like anti-social elements.
“For the ultimate 3 weeks, folks in my neighbourhood have greeted me with ridicule. Some have asked me caustically why I selected to paintings for the company,” mentioned a woman who has been in the accounts department for 10 years.
She mentioned her husband ran a small business and her earnings had been the important thing for her circle of relatives’s survival. “My son is studying engineering. Now that the plant has been closed, we will suffer the results. Some elements have spread false propaganda in regards to the company,” she mentioned, hoping the government would possibly imagine reopening the plant.
The shutdown has come as a shock for more than 900 permanent workers. “Rumours had been spread on social media and the government has acted because of power,” mentioned a senior worker who has labored here for 23 years.
Recalling the violence on May 22, Karthik who used to be in the plant’s residential quarters mentioned the mob attacked automobiles and set them ablaze. “Women and kids had been in tears and fearing for their lives as they fled to the terrace when a cloud of smoke from burning automobiles engulfed our houses,” he mentioned, including that the protesters had been threatening to kill them if they came down. “We are praying the government reopens the factory,” he mentioned.
The plight of the nearly 2,000 contract labourers is worse. Thoothukudi Sterlite All Contractors Welfare Association president S Thiagarajan advised TOI that around 40 contractors are hooked up to the affiliation with 1,500 to 2,000 contract labourers operating for them.
Around 500 workers are from northern states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and plenty of of them had been sent again as uncertainty shrouds the plant’s continuance. Thiagarajan mentioned workers had been inquiring for loans to pay the charges in their kids and for pressing scientific bills.
“Payment of more than ?20 crore from Sterlite is pending for contractors. Many trucks and heavy machines employed through us are also on the sealed premises of the plant. In the fast run, we pray that the dues are settled and automobiles launched at the earliest. Eventually, we wish the plant to resume operations,” he adds.
“For the ultimate 3 weeks, folks in my neighbourhood have greeted me with ridicule. Some have asked me caustically why I selected to paintings for the company,” mentioned a woman who has been in the accounts department for 10 years.
She mentioned her husband ran a small business and her earnings had been the important thing for her circle of relatives’s survival. “My son is studying engineering. Now that the plant has been closed, we will suffer the results. Some elements have spread false propaganda in regards to the company,” she mentioned, hoping the government would possibly imagine reopening the plant.
The shutdown has come as a shock for more than 900 permanent workers. “Rumours had been spread on social media and the government has acted because of power,” mentioned a senior worker who has labored here for 23 years.
Recalling the violence on May 22, Karthik who used to be in the plant’s residential quarters mentioned the mob attacked automobiles and set them ablaze. “Women and kids had been in tears and fearing for their lives as they fled to the terrace when a cloud of smoke from burning automobiles engulfed our houses,” he mentioned, including that the protesters had been threatening to kill them if they came down. “We are praying the government reopens the factory,” he mentioned.
The plight of the nearly 2,000 contract labourers is worse. Thoothukudi Sterlite All Contractors Welfare Association president S Thiagarajan advised TOI that around 40 contractors are hooked up to the affiliation with 1,500 to 2,000 contract labourers operating for them.
Around 500 workers are from northern states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and plenty of of them had been sent again as uncertainty shrouds the plant’s continuance. Thiagarajan mentioned workers had been inquiring for loans to pay the charges in their kids and for pressing scientific bills.
“Payment of more than ?20 crore from Sterlite is pending for contractors. Many trucks and heavy machines employed through us are also on the sealed premises of the plant. In the fast run, we pray that the dues are settled and automobiles launched at the earliest. Eventually, we wish the plant to resume operations,” he adds.
3,000 Sterlite employees face bleak future
![3,000 Sterlite employees face bleak future]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
June 01, 2018
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