Stalemate as port strike enters second day

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 19. Work was affected for the second day today at 11 ports in the country as the stalemate over the port and dock workers' demand for wage revision continued.

Though there were no indications of any fresh initiative to break the deadlock, the Minister of Surface Transport, Mr. Rajnath Singh, is reported to have met the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, after the Cabinet meeting this evening to apprise him with of the situation. Similarly, the Secretary (Shipping), Mr. R. Vasudevan met the Cabinet Secretary, Mr. Prabhat Kumar.

While appealing to the workers to call off the strike and return to the negotiating table, Mr. Singh had indicated on Tuesday that the Government might take a tough line. Without commenting on whether the Government proposed to invoke the Essential Service Maintenance Act, he had said that `` we have accepted the challenge'' and all steps would be taken to meet it.

Official sources indicated the possibility of the some of the ports moving the courts to have the strike declared illegal as had been done in the case of strike by the officials of the oil companies in the public sector recently. The conciliation proceedings were pending before the Central Labour Commissioner, Mumbai, when workers went on strike from midnight on Monday after the talks with Mr. Singh broke down that evening. The strike call was unilaterally given by the five federations on December 29 when negotiations which led to the conciliation proceedings were still on.

According to Mr. Vasudevan, the Government does not want to precipitate matters by adopting a confrontationist attitude towards the workers at this point of time.

There are conflicting reports about the extent to which the operations have been affected. The five federations leading the strike claim that it has been successful and that operations at the ports have been paralysed. At the same time, a large number of trade unions have expressed solidarity with the dock workers while congratulating them for their `` successful'' strike.

In the status report summing up the situation at the major ports until 4 p. m. this evening, the Government claimed that cargo handling at some ports was as high as over 81 per cent. The New Mangalore port was said to have handled 72,000 tonnes of cargo which was stated to be 177 per cent of the normal cargo handled around this time last year.

The Chennai port, the report asserted, handled 30,000 tonnes today compared to 4760 tonnes on Tuesday. While Calcutta handled 35,000 tonnes (43 per cent), the Jawahar Lal Nehru port moved 10,000 tonnes (32.5 per cent) of liquid cargo. Kandla reported normal oil cargo operations even as Vishakhapatnam handled 37317 tonnes(44 per cent). Tuticorin was reported to handled 22,922 tons(81.3 per cent) of cargo.

While information about the situation at Paradip, Cochin and Mormogaon was not available, the Government claimed staff attendance of Class III and Class IV employees was upto 22 per cent. All essential services including water supply, electricity, communication and fire fighting at these ports were normal.

No untoward incident was reported from any of the ports. Nor was there any report of any damage to Government property even as the naval and personnel belonging to other organisations assisted the authorities in carrying out the port operations.

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