Beedi workers to stage agitation in Mangalore on Nov 16

Mangalore, Nov 14 (UNI) Over 15,000 beedi workers from Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka, under the banner Beedi Industry and Labour Protection Committee, will hold a protest meet here on November 16, pressing for the fulfillment of their demands.

Addressing a joint press conference here today, BMS District Secretary Vishwanath Shetty and INTUC District Secretary Suresh Shetty lamented that the decision of the beedi industry owners to shut shop from November 20 in the wake of severe restrictions imposed on the sector by the UPA Government at the Centre would come as a severe blow to the about one crore beedi workers.

They said that though beedi industry was a hand made manufacturing industry, the Government treated it as a machine made one and decided to impose 12.5 per cent VAT, adversely affecting the industry. The Government was adopting an anti-beedi stand to favour the cigarette industry, they alleged.

Seeking immediate Government intervention to solve their crisis, they demanded that the Government evolve a uniform minimum wage policy for beedi workers across the country, issue identity cards to beedi rollers and not allow the industry owners to go ahead with the indefinite industry bandh from November 20.

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