Tangedco contract workers stage road roko, arrested

TIRUNELVELI

Police detained 280 contractual workers affiliated to Central Organisation of Electrical Workers of CITU for staging a road roko here on Thursday demanding that their jobs be made permanent.

The protestors raised slogans to highlight their demands and blocked traffic in front of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) office at Maharaja Nagar.

The workers said over 13,000 contract labourers of Tangedco, who worked round-the-clock during cyclone and heavy downpour across Tamil Nadu and even during the COVID-19-induced lockdown, were yet to be made permanent employees though vacancies exist. The daily wages for the contract workers should be increased to ₹380 a day.

“In its election manifesto for Assembly election 2021, the DMK had promised to make jobs permanent of Tangedco contract workers who had put in 10 years of service. However, after coming to power, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin refuses to fulfil this promise, which is nothing but betrayal. Moreover, the contract workers in the thermal power stations also should be made permanent,” the protestors said.

They also condemned the thermal power station officials of sending reports to the government stating that no contract worker were in their power stations. 

In Thoothukudi, police arrested 133 persons for staging a road roko in front of the Old bus stand on Thursday. Similar agitations were organised in Tenkasi and Kanniyakumari districts too. The detained protestors were released in the evening.