Agricultural Workers Union Conference concludes

Seventh All India conference of Agricultural workers union concluded at Trichy on Monday with a huge farmers rally. The conference has decided to organise a march to Parliament during the winter session as a culmination of the nation-wide grassroots campaigns on employment and wages, and demanding proper implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) with 150 days of work a year and a minimum wage of Rs. 200 per day.

The demand was adopted as a resolution at the end of the union's seventh All India conference here.

Union general secretary, A. Vijayaraghavan, said grassroots campaign through street-corner meetings and door-to door sensitisation exercises would be carried out in villages from October 2.

Delegates debated the pernicious policies of the Central government and its attempt at marginalising the rural masses, particularly agricultural labourers, and decried the tweaking of the criteria to identify Below Poverty Line beneficiaries of Public Distribution System. Deserving masses had been left out of the scheme in large numbers, he said, citing the instance of the predominantly tribal population in Amaravathi district of Maharashtra. “The poor man has a right to livelihood. We carried out a door-to-door survey in the district and found that there was a very high incidence of child malnutrition in the district with 90 per cent population of tribals,” he said.There was no point in emulating the economic models of western countries, he said, explaining that in India 60 per cent of the population was dependent on agriculture.

Changes could be ushered in only through mass movements, he said, pointing out that naxalism was non-existent in States where land reforms had been carried out. The AIAWU would extend its support to the nation-wide general strike called by trade unions on September 7, said Mr. Vijayaraghavan.

The Conference also elected new office bearers to the union. Paturu Ramayya – president; Bhanulal Saha, Sarangdhar Paswan, M.V. Govindan Master, B. Venkat, and S. Thirunavukkrasu – vice-presidents; A. Vijayaraghavan – general secretary; and Suneet Chopra, Hannan Mollah and Kumar Shiralkar – joint secretaries.

The Conference concluded with a huge farmers rally in Trichy. The rally converged at uzhavarchanthai and the public meeting at Jyothi Basu nagar was inaugurated by Com. Manik Sarkar, Chief Minister of Tripura. CPIM politburo member K Varadarajan, union General Secretary Com. A Vijayaraghavan, K Balakrishnan also attended the function.