A press release said that a
decision was taken at the national working committee meeting of Water
Transport Workers Federation of India at Kolkata.
T.Narendra Rao, General Secretary of the Federation alleged
that several steps being initiated by various major port authorities at the Ministry
of Ports, Shipping & Waterways directives is highly
detrimental and undermines the existence of major ports being a public entity.
The Government plans to divest its public ownership by
handing over the ready built valuable assets and facilities such as its cargo
handling terminal to corporates under National Assets Monetisation Pipeline
projects.
He said in a statement that the
overcapacity creation in major ports is happening at large scale thereby
existence of several major ports are at stake in terms of cargo volume, low
draft and financial crunch.
Several other genuine issues of port and dock workers
are unsettled till today and the committee considered all these issues before
deciding for the industrial action by joining hands with other sister
organizations, he said.