villages, but they are not a part of
reserved forest. According to the
govt.’s
own
admittance,
encroachment had taken place in
some parts of Amchang much
before they were notified as a
Reserve Forest in 2004. But , in
violation of laws, the commercial
resorts, cement industries and the
army firing range are allowed to
continue in the reserved forest
area.
The government is engaged
in this massive displacement of
people only as part its policy to
hand over lands to the foreign
companies and Indian Corporate
Houses. It is removing the people
from in and around Guwahati. The
rulers consider Guwahati as an
eme rging a geo-strategic industrial
and logistical hub through which
goods and services will be
funnelled to the neighbouring
states. It is also said that the areas
like Sipajhar, Morigaon, Boko,
Chaygaon etc. are important to
sustain Guwahati as an industrial
hub. All this is only a part of govt.’s
larger policy of privatisation. It is
acting like an enabler. Providing
easy access to large tracks of
land to the MNCs and Indian
Corporate Houses is a first step
in this. Land acquisition continues
to be difficult. So branding a part
of the people as illegal immigrants,
illegal encroachers, inciting the
communal forces and tensions
against them have become a part
of the game for the BJP rulers in
Assam to divide the people, set
one section of people agents
another, weaken their struggle,
use brutal repression and push
through their eviction drive more
easily and even absolve
themselves from the responsibility
of proving proper compensation
and rehabilitation to the people.
The rulers in Assam are talking
much about saving ecological
January - 2018
Unchahar Blast
Perilous working conditions
In yet another gory “accident”,
32 workers died and 100 workers
injured in Unchahar thermal
power plant at Raibareli, UP, run
by National thermal Power
Corporation (NTPC). The political
leaders expressed shock and
grief. The state government
offered compensation. An enquiry
committee was appointed. And
the matter lost its news value and
fade away. This is what happens
in every case of work place
accidents.
The accident occurred due to
blast in the high pressure boiler
of unit-6 of the plant. Without
shutting down the boiler completely
the workers was ordered to clear
the ash collected due the
malfunction. As the pressure
mounted in the boiler blast
occurred. About 300 workers are
in and around the boiler at the
time of blast. This is an easily
avoidable blast if all the safety
norms were observed. It only
exposes the callous disregard for
the worker’s safety and lives.
There is no excuse as the
NTPC is a public sector unit and supposed to observe all the safety
norms. It runs 48 thermal plants
all over India. It should have well
defined safety procedures. In fact,
it had. But they were wantonly kept
aside for the sake of production.
Majority of the affected
workers are migrant contract
workers engaged by the NTPC
through a contractor. This is a ploy
used by many industries including
the PSUs to escape from the
responsibility of providing secure
and safe employment to their
workers. As workers are employed
by the contractor, they argue, the
industry at which they are working
will not have any responsibility. This
is a wide spread practice despite
the Supreme Court ruling that the
government is responsible for
contract workers as the principal
employer. The so-called labour
laws and even the rulings of
Supreme Court are being openly
floated without any fear of criminal
action by the very government and
its bodies that are supposed to be
guardian of law. contd. in page 21
resources. But they almost
destroyed the Patkai hills by
allowing open mining in different
parts of the state. They allowed
the extraction of large amount of
industrial wood from areas falling
under Rabha Hasong Autonomous
Councils and Chirang in BTAD.
Huge tracts of land in the tribal belt
were already handed over to the
outfits like Patanjali and Dabur,
etc. Clearly, the rulers are feasting
a handful of fatty big business
concerns by looting and starving
the poor millions all in the name
of development. On one side, the MNCs and Indian big business are
allowed tomassively and endlessly
gobble the lands and other means
of people’s livelihood. On the other
side, every year a large part of
State’s land is lost because of
erosions turning a large number of
people home-less and landless.
Hence, fight against the invasion
into their lands and means of
livelihood by the imperialists and
Indian big business; for radical
land reforms and a democratic,
national and pro-people development
policy has become most essential
and urgent task of our people.
17