People's Democracy

THE BJP-led union government’s policies have put the wagon-making industry of the country into a grave crisis putting the livelihoods of no less than two lakh of workers in West Bengal alone at stake.

The leaders of Bharat Bhari Udyog Nigam Limited (BBUNL) at a press conference in Kolkata recently, cited statistics of the union government to drive home the point how the NDA government "is bent on virtually finishing off the wagon-making units of the country."

Despite the promise flaunted in the railway budget for the year 2001-2002 that 23,000 new railway wagons would be built, no orders have been placed for the fabrication of even a single wagon with any of the production units of the country. On the other hand, efforts have been "on" to ensure that the original target of 23,000 wagons got suitably pared down to less than 5000.

85 per cent of wagons fabricated in the country are produced in factories located in Bengal. Thus, the decision of the union government with regards to the wagon-making industry would affect the livelihoods of no less than two lakh of workers in the state.

The units that would be affected include: Burn Standard, Braithwaite, Jessops, Bridge and Roof, Texmaco, Hindustan Development corporation, Titagurh Steel, Modern Industries etc.According to estimations made by the Planning Commission, around 30,000 wagons become unfit for use per year in the country. The Railways ministry has, over the past years, made it a point to gradually cut down on the number of new wagons that would have to be fabricated to replace those getting phased out. No considerations are attached either to safety norms or load-bearing capacity.

Notably during the tenure of Mamata Banerjee as Railways minister, the orders placed for new wagons touched a new low with orders being placed for the fabrication of a mere 18,000 odd wagons, a figure far below that called for during the United Front government at the centre.

The railways ministry has also seen fit to lower the prices of the wagons that have been ordered to be constructed earlier, thus putting the concerned production units to grave losses.

To protest against this arbitrary and counter-productive policy of the BJP-led union government, workers-employees engaged in the wagon-making industry would seek mass casual leave and sit on dharna in front of the headquarters of the South-Eastern Railways in Kolkata on June 20. The leaders added to say that if necessary, a strike may be called in the wagon-making industry.

A set of functional guidelines has been circulated among all the urban local bodies of Bengal by the Department of Urban Development, and all the municipalities and the corporations have been asked to report back by July 31 as to the progress made in the implementation of the tasks contained in the guidelines. The guidelines are aimed at making urban governance more transparent, more accountable, and more dynamic.

The guidelines comprise the following directives:

Ward committees are to be set up in each and every urban local body, and in cases where such committees are yet to be formed, the task is to be completed positively by July 1.

Each ward committee would have to convene an annual general meeting of the citizens of the ward by June 30 at the end of the completion of one financial year (FY). The initiatives organized by the ward committee should be explained to the citizens. The citizens would be requested to place the their preferences of task-priorities for the next FY.

Each urban local body must prepare a detailed budget every FY.

Each municipality/corporation must dispense with the services of workers-employees who are in excess of the number of posts sanctioned by the urban development department, and all expenses incurred in maintaining the excess staff would be regarded as illegal expenditure.

Projects undertaken must be completed in time so as to prevent spill-over expenditure in the budget of the following year. Non-plan expenditure should be cut down as much as possible as part of the exercise of financial discipline.

Each urban local body should try and generate resources by fixing rates of property tax, and non-tax revenue, and the matter of realizing the targets set in this regard must be carefully monitored.

There should be no shifting of budget-heads while spending funds, and all such diversions must be put an end to immediately.

With the rapid advancement of urbanization in Bengal, the urban population has started to increase at a rapid pace. Five-year plans need to be drawn up by the municipalities and corporations in order to make sure that adequate civic amenities are extended to the people in the town and cities.

The urban development minister, Ashok Bhattacharyya has started meeting the councillors and commissioners of all the urban local bodies of the state and would continue this over the month of June.

As the summer season climaxes with heat waves pounding the city of Kolkata, the denizens of the metropolis has to face the additional hazard of an acute crisis in the supply of potable water.

Having enjoyed plentiful supplies of drinking water over the past many years when the Left Front ran the board of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), the present experience has certainly caught the people of the city on the wrong foot.

With very little work getting done by way of cleaning out of the piped-water supply network, and with the deep tubewells suffering from neglect and disrepair, the rate of supply of drinking water, that had remained the highest in the country earlier has gone drastically down.

The searing heat has meant the decline of the level of water tables below the reach of the shallow hand pumps. The drying up of the underwater basins that keep the big pumping stations stocked up with water, too, has added to the crisis.

For the past couple of weeks, in particular, various areas of the city have witnessed demonstrations being organized by the citizens of Kolkata against the deepening water crisis. The Trinamul Congress Mayor has chosen to respond with the floating of a proposal that has something to do with cooling but is not connected even remotely to the water crisis of the city.

The Mayor in his misplaced wisdom has decided to install air-conditioning machines in the rooms of each of his mayors-in-council. He had of course been sagacious enough to "cool down" his own "chamber" much earlier the moment he had set foot on the corporation premises, months ago.