Srinagar, Oct 11 (KNS): The J&K State Committee CPI (M) on Thursday held a one-day meeting under the chairmanship of Ghulam Nabi Malik, State Secretary in which members from across the state participated.
During the day-long deliberations, the political situation in Jammu and Kashmir and various problems pertaining to different sections of population were discussed threadbare.
According to the statement issued to KNS, the Committee expressed serious concern regarding the irresponsive attitude of the administration towards the livelihood issues of the common people.
The following resolutions were adopted:
The rise in freight charges on apple boxes from Kashmir to outside state markets, State Government’s market intervention scheme (MIS) for purchase of C-grade and cult fruit from the farmers has been stopped which has hardly hit the growers. The fruit growers are forced to rush their produce to various markets across the country due to lack of cold storage and other facilities. As such the Government must provide attention towards the problems of the growers.
Dailywgers/Casual labourers who were promised of regularization are not being paid their wages for the months together. Casual labourers who have donated land for PHE schemes, those working in PDD and other departments are without wages for several months. This approach has caused lot of distress among these poor workers.
The Committee also asked the Government to shelve privatization of Power Development Department (PDD). The privatization would increase the power tariff by a huge margin leaving the electricity bills beyond the paying capacity of locals. Government should take into notice the income of majority of the population before going ahead with the privatization. People at present pay the current tariff with difficulty, and it will be huge burden on them to pay additional fee. As such CPI (M) strongly demands reversal of this counter-productive policy of privatization of power sector forthwith.
On the group medi-claim health insurance scheme rolled out by Jammu and Kashmir Government recently for employees and pensioners, the Committee expressed its concern that an equal premium of Rs 8777 for poor class IV employees and Gazzeted Officers in the scheme is unjustified and unacceptable. Government should have taken into consideration the amount of salary received by different categories of the employees while fixing the amount of premium and the suggestion of employee unions.
CPI (M) expressed its deep concern over the indiscriminate arrests of youth, detentions under PSA and shifting of prisoners to outside Kashmir jails. It demanded immediate intervention from the Governor to direct the concerned to desist from using excessive force and indiscriminate arrests and harassment. (KNS)