HYDERABAD: The Congress party, which is trying to regain its lost hold on every section of voters, has now focused its attention on winning the hearts of workers in unorganised sectors by holding training programmes to make them know about their rights and social security measures being implemented for each section of labourers. As part of this measure, a five-day training programme for agriculture workers was initiated by the party frontal wing Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) State unit, in collaboration with International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC) on Monday.
During the inaugural session, attended by farm labourers, who are making their living by doing works under MGNREGS, speakers tried to explain how this social security measure is aimed enhancing livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household. They tried to create awareness among the workers on the safeguards provided to the labourers in the MGNREG Act such as guaranteeing the ‘right to work’ and prohibition of involvement of contractors.
While addressing the session, TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said NREGS was a revolutionary scheme introduced by the then UPA government at the Centre. “However, Prime Minister Modi’s government has been trying to dilute the scheme and by delaying payments to MGNREGS workers, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s government is killing the actual purpose of its inception,” he criticised. He said contrary to the claims of being the richest State in the country, the State government had not cleared the payments of MGNREGS workers for the past few months.
Party to hold workshops
Party is planning to hold workshops to Anganwadi workers, beedi workers, migrant workers to create awareness among them on the laws that provide social security to themAICC secretary RC Khuntia said that previous UPA government had made several laws like Vendors Act, 2014 to protect the rights of workers in unorganised sector. Likewise, there are some more laws like Building Workers Act, 1995 in existence that could benefit crores of workers in unorganised sectors. Hence, the TPCC will hold training programmes
Of the 33,000 migrant workers, who are likely to benefit from the Amnesty announced by Kuwait government, nearly 10-15,000 workers hail from Telugu land. As these workers spread across 25 Assembly and 4 Lok Sabha segments in State, the TPCC will hold programmes for them too