The Hindu : Trinamool Mayor firm on retrenchment plan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 15, 2002

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Trinamool Mayor firm on retrenchment plan

By Malabika Bhattacharya

KOLKATA DEC. 14. In a reversal of roles, the Kolkata Mayor, Subrata Mukherjee, a senior leader of the Trinamool Congress, is planning to cut nearly 15,000 civic jobs, which a section of the ruling CPI (M), is opposing.

Mr. Mukherjee, who has been taking hard, and at times, controversial decisions, has announced that he would retrench at least 12,000 to 15,000 "unproductive and idle employees" as part of his efforts to take the Calcutta Municipal Corporation out of the red. Mr. Mukherjee, who is also leader of the West Bengal unit of the INTUC, has planned the move in disregard of the Trinamool chief, Mamata Banerjee's and the party's sentiments.

He is on record saying that he will shortly set up a medical board, comprising leading physicians, which will help the CMC identify physically "unfit and unproductive" employees from among the 45,000-strong workforce. He will sit with the representatives of the Department for the International Development (DFID), U.K., on December 18, to examine its offer of funds for a Voluntary Retirement Scheme for the CMC.

It is believed that the West Bengal Urban Development Minister, Ashok Bhattacharya, has agreed to meet the DFID because the Government is favourably disposed towards Mr. Mukherjee's efforts as they conform to the disinvestment programme initiated by him.

On Friday, the Trinamool legislators in the Assembly tried to kick up a row over the Government's decision to close down a few terminally-sick units as part of the disinvestment programme, but remained silent on the Mayor' s move.

A day after the debate, Mr. Mukherjee said that he would accept no resistance to the planned job cuts in the CMC. Going a step further, he said he would not hesitate to close down even unproductive departments, if necessary. "I am determined to start operating the VRS from February. So far as my knowledge goes, many employees have crossed the retirement age long ago but managed to hold on to corporation jobs by hiding various facts and causing enormous losses to the corporation."

Much to the discomfort of the Trinamool leadership, Mr. Mukherjee has been increasingly acting as an extension of the Government and speaking the language of the new economy. He has openly supported the current campaign for the reconstruction of Kolkata, as part of which lakhs of illegal settlers have been evicted from areas along the choked and encroached canals within the city, and called for a legislation to control the migration of the unskilled and the unauthorised to Kolkata.

Two Left MLAs, Rabin Deb of the CPI (M) and Tapan Hore of the RSP, have criticised the Mayor for his move. The Trinamool's Shobhandeb Chattopadhyay, also a CMC employee and the leader of his party in the Assembly, is, however, silent. In the Assembly on Friday, he concentrated on the State's disinvestment policy and said: "we are against unbridled disinvestment.'' On Saturday, he refused to elaborate after the State Industries Minister, Nirupam Sen, questioned the Trinamool's "real intention" with regard to the disinvestment policy of the BJP — of which the party is an ally — which led to the closure of a large number of public sector units in West Bengal and elsewhere. Already, a sizeable section of the workforce had been rendered jobless, Mr. Sen said.

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Trinamool Mayor firm on retrenchment plan