Resolution against Continuing Attacks on the People of West Bengal and in Solidarity to Struggles against such Attacks
The
General Council meeting of CITU being held on 11-14 July 2014 at
Bellary, Karnataka expresses serious concern on the continuing
phenomenon of severe attacks and intimidations on our comrades and also
con the common people in West Bengal by the TMC led goons and
antisocial elements since last 37 months since May 2011 and also in the
run up to the election campaign and even after declaration of election
results. During this period more than 157 Left and CITU activists were
killed and the number is increasing every day. Thousands were
physically attacked and injured by the physical onslaught by the TMC
goons with the police administration aiding and abetting such attacks
and onslaughts. Even after declaration of election results on 16th
May 2014 such attacks and intimidation have been continuing in full
steam and 12 comrades including two women were murdered. Several
thousands are ousted from their areas of work and residence. More than
15000 comrades and activists have been implicated in false cases and
many of them were even jailed for months together having been booked on
non-bailable cases. Molestation and rape of woman by TMC hoodlums have
become almost a frequent happenings in the state. Latest has been the
brutal rape of one anganwadi worker by TMC miscreant at Nadia district
on 7th July 2014 and it is the same district where the TMC MP
had given open threat to get women raped by his men a few days before
such dastardly incident of rape. The Police has been actively
patronising such attacks shamelessly. After the declaration of election
result, intensity of such attack has increased targeting the working
people, both in towns and rural areas. Livelihood of the people are
being attacked by way of ousting thousands of small farmers from their
land; evicting contract workers in thousands in several industries and
replacing them with new set of workers with lower wages in connivance
with the contractors; blockading functioning of numerous small
cooperatives and self-help groups through terrorand violence; and even
forcibly closing down small shops and similar small businesses through
violence and extortions—all designed to maintain an atmosphere of terror
and fear among the people at large and prevent any opposition to the
reign of extortion and loot by the TMC goons with the active support of
administration. The main purpose behind such attack is to sustain an
atmosphere of terror maiming all kinds of dissent and protest against
such beastly misrule of the TMC Govt as well as the anti-social and
anti-people activities of the miscreants under their shelter. And the
basic aim is to marginalise and eliminate Left, it being the only
potential opponent to the regime of loot and plunder under stewardship
of thecorporates either through TMC in West Bengal or through BJP at the centre.
The
democratic right of holding meetings, rallies etc are being sought to
be denied to the Left parties and even other trade unions and mass
organisations. Also many non-political progressive organisations are
being obstructed to have their activities involving mass of the public.
Refusal of permission by the police administration to hold public
meeting, even hall meetings and using mike throughout the state at the
instigation of TMC has become almost a regular affair. Even labour
department officials are being directed by the TMC Govt or their cohorts
not to respond to the complaints or grievances raised by the trade
unions and not even call conciliation meetings. Massive corruption,
irregularities, nepotism, and anarchy in every segment of social life
and governance being openly practiced by the TMC brigade is continuing
and entire administration has been working overtime to ensure that
nobody can raise their voice against such anarchy and hoodlumism. In
fact total abrogation of all democratic rights of the people to
collectively voice concerns and dissent had been the project of the
ruling party in the state and that has gained momentum after the 16th Lok Sabha election.
CITU
and other mass organization of the Left parties have been bravely
combating such situation while carrying on their organized opposition
and protest against such anarchic regime and denial of democratic rights
to common people by the TMC regime and their virtually lumpen-led
administration. Other trade unions like HMS, AICCTU and INTUC etc are
also joining protest against such attacks and onslaught on democratic
rights.
The
General Council meeting of CITU, while condemning such lumpen-raj in
West Bengal, expresses full support and solidarity with the struggle by
CITU, other mass organizations and the Left parties and demands upon
the state Govt in West Bengal to put a stop attack and onslaught on the
Left parties, trade unions and mass organizations forthwith. CITU calls
upon working people and trade unions all over the country to organize
solidarity action and campaign against the ongoing brutalities by the
fascistic lumpen-led TMC regime on the democratic people of West Bengal.
Resolution on Union Budget 2014-15
The
General Council meeting of CITU being held on 11-14 July 2014 at
Bellary, Karnataka denounces the anti-people Budget (2014-15) of the
Narendra Modi Government. The Union Budget (2014-15) is an exercise in
piloting large scale FDI-PPP mode in the financial and policy governance
of the country under BJP rule. It followed the same policy trajectory
deregulation, privatization and corporate-orientation so long followed
by its predecessor the UPA Govt which has been rejected by the people in
election. And pursuit of these policies by UPA has landed the national
economy in gloom with dwindling growth rate, continuing inflationary
spiral and aggravating unemployment. The Budget has set in motion the
process of betrayal of the promise for “so called good days” made by
Modi in his election campaign. The Finance Minister has said in his
Budget speech, “ these are only the first steps and are directional.”
The Finance Minister, just three days before the presentation of his Budget spoke in Rajya Sabha on 7th
July 2014 while replying to debate on “price rise” that any exercise in
containing fiscal deficit through cutting down expenditure will lead to
contraction of the economy in a situation of already dwindling growth
rate of sub-5 per cent. He repeated the same statement orally in Lok
Sabha while presenting the Budget. But while making high sounded
commitment and promises for all round growth in his budget speech, in
actual budgetary exercise, the Finance Minister meticulously practiced
the same route of drastically cutting down central plan outlay on almost
all heads impacting common people like Agriculture, rural development,
Transport, General Economic Services and Social Services etc. The
Ministries of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Human Resource
Development and the Department of School Education and Literacy in
particular and Women & Child Development also faced a drastic cut in
allocation of funds. The share of SCs and STs in plan expenditure is
kept far below (by Rs 47000 crore) the stipulation of planning
commission guidelines based on proportion of population. Therefore, the
first budget of the Modi Govt took off engineering a deceit on the
people.
On
the other hand, the Budget has launched onslaught against various
flagship welfare schemes. MGNREGA is going to be immediate target of
attack due to the policy pronouncement in the Budget that State
Governments will have to spend two-third of the revenue transferred in
‘capital asset creation.’ Also a move is afoot to turn the right based
employment guarantee legislation into just a welfare scheme with no
guarantee in employment.
While
engineering a drastic cut in expenditure on almost all heads impacting
common people aimed at containing fiscal deficit, the budget remained
reluctant in taking any action in arresting organized pilferage from
public exchequer in the form of deliberate tax default by big corporate
houses which reached a huge sum of Rs 4.18 lakh crore on account of
corporate tax and income tax by the end of 2012-13 of which Rs 72901
crore is not under dispute. Rather the measures envisaged in the
budgetary proposal to avoid dispute and litigation on tax claim are
basically designed the defaulters a long hand to legitimize the default
and pilferage from the public exchequer.
Added
to this is the decision to constitute the Expenditure Management
Commission to look into basically the subsidies for common people aiming
at further deduction in the same. The Budget has already proposed a cut
in subsidy on petroleum to the tune of Rs 22054 crore which would have a
cascading effect on prices of all goods. And such cascading effect on
prices of goods and services is going to be perpetual as the Budget
announces total decontrol of diesel pricing before the end of current
financial year.
Simultaneously,
the budget reduced the direct tax leading to a revenue loss of Rs 22200
crore while increasing the indirect tax burden to the tune of Rs 7525
crore. And the manner the budgetary proposal extended liberalized
concessions/reduction of customs and import duty on various heads, the
additional revenue of Rs 7525 crore in indirect tax means a larger
revenue on account of tax on domestic consumption goods to be borne by
common people already reeling under continuing price-rise and mounting
burden of unemployment and joblosses.
The
Budget has announced raising of FDI cap in defence and insurance sector
from existing 26% to 49% musct to the detriment of the interests of
national economy. The target for revenue from PSU divestment has been
set at a huge amount of Rs.63,000 crore and the Finance Minister has
announced that instead of earning dividend from PSUs they prefer
divestment of Government equity in the PSUs. Number of measures have
been incorporated in the Budget to actually weaken the public sector
banks making them easy prey of privatization policy of the Government.
Budget
while sounding high on promoting investment for boosting manufacturing
sector, practically relied on good intention of the private investors
through more liberal incentives and tax concessions. In an atmosphere of
shrinking market and declining purchasing power of the people owing
price-rise and industrial sickness, incentives and tax concessions
cannot boost employment generating investment except causing revenue
losses. Rather the measures announced in the budget for liberalization
of tax regime on portfolio investment, transfer-pricing and mutual fund
and steps envisaged for energizing capital market etc would attract flow
of investment more towards speculative market than employment
generating productive investment. That will definitely make the
corporates and big business, both domestic and foreign, happier while
common people will be left high and dry.
In
respect of almost all development expenditure including various
infrastructural projects, the Budget relied more on PPP and FDI despite
dismal performance and non-materialisation of PPP during the previous
regime. Rather, the Budget indicated further concessions/incentive to
private players in the name of reducing rigidities and taking a more
liberal approach.
On
the whole, the first budget of the NDA Govt has basically turned out to
be grossly anti-people in character promoting more aggressive loot by
the corporate and big-business houses on the mass of the people. The
General Council of CITU condemns such anti-people Budget and calls upon
the working people and trade union movement to build united opposition
to the said anti-people budget and related policies of deregulation,
privatization for promoting corporate loot on the people.
Resolution on Allocation under scheduled Castes Sub Plan
This
meeting of the General Council of CITU being held in Bellary on 11 – 14
July 2014 strongly condemns the decline in the allocation for the
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the Scheduled Castes Sub
Plan (SCSP) in the Union Budget placed by the Finance Minister in the
Parliament.
The
SCSP, one of the most important budgetary issues for Dalits was
initiated 35 years ago, became necessary as the SCs were continuously
denied their adequate share of government funds essential to meet their
needs and improve their conditions. It mandates setting aside a
proportion of the total Plan outlay of the Centre and state governments
equivalent to the proportion of the SCs at the national and state
levels, exclusively for their development. According to the Census 2011,
SC population comprises 16.6% of the total population.
However,
the total plan allocation in this Budget has declined in real terms by
around 4%. Moreover the total share of SCs and STs in the total plan
expenditure is falling short by Rs 47000 crores and Rs 14000 crores
according to the Planning Commission guidelines based on the proportion
of the population. It is also a matter of serious concern that what is
being allocated is also not being spent. While Rs 41561.13 crores was
allocated for SCSP in the Budget 2013 – 14, according to the Revised
Estimates only Rs 35800.6 crores have been spent. There have been
several instances of SCSP funds being diverted to entirely different
uses like construction of flyovers, Commonwealth Games etc. The Twelfth
Five Year Plan document itself had to admit that ‘The expenditure in
many states/ UTs was not even 50% of the allocated funds. No proper
budget heads/ sub heads were created to prevent diversion of funds.
There was no controlling and monitoring mechanisms’
In
order to ensure effective implementation of the SCSP, there is an
urgent need to enact a national legislation to provide statutory backing
to the provisions of the SCSP.
This General Council meeting demands that the government of India should
- Enact a legislation providing statutory status to SCSP in this Budget session itself
- The government should allocate 16.6% of Plan Outlays for the SCSP
- Take
effective measures to ensure that the funds are spent for the
development of Dalits and are not diverted for other purposes and also
that the funds are spent in time and are not allowed to lapse.
Resolution on Israeli aggression on Palestine
The meeting of the General Council of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) at Bellary from 11th to 14th
July expresses its anger and protest against the Israeli attack on
Gaza. For more than one week Gaza is being bombarded by the Israeli
armed forces killing more than 165 people including many children. The
attacks are being targeted on the residential areas. Latest reports say
that Israeli armed forces have begun invasion at ground level also and
thousands are forced to flee. The whole region is under threat of
escalation of war.
CITU
condemns these attacks, which are in contravention of international
lands. In the back ground of happenings in the middle-east region, these
Zionist attacks by the closest ally of US imperialists will aggravate
the situation.
The
CITU demands the Govt. of India to condemn Israeli aggression on
Palestine and take necessary steps to bring international pressure on
aggressors. CITU expresses solidarity with the people of Palestine and
calls upon its affiliates and democratic movements to protest against
the Zionist aggression.
