A meeting of the ‘Change of Designations Committee’ in BSNL was held today, 23rd July.  The Official side agreed for the change of designations of RM to Telecom Assistant and TM to Telecom Technician. The designation for Sr.TOA and TTA are yet to be finalised since the designations suggested by the staff side were not accepted by the management. Discussions will continue to sort out the issue. Coms. P.Abhimanyu, V.A.N.Namboodiri and Animesh Mitra participated from BSNLEU.

The Standing Committee Meeting of the BSNL National Council was held today, 22nd july 2014 to review about the stage of issues discussed in the National Council. Coms. P.Abhimanyu, Staff Side Secretary, V.A.N.Namboodiri and Animesh Mitra participated from BSNLEU.

All the pending issues were discussed. A brief report of the same will be posted in the BSNLEU website.

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation has created record in settling the cases. It settled 90.5 lakh in 2011-12, 111.42 lakh in 2012-13, 123.36 lakh in 2013-14 and 37.41 lakh in the present financial year till July 2014.

This was stated by Minister of State for labour Shri Vishnu Deo Sai to a reply in the Lok Sabha. But however, it is not reported, how many cases are pending settlement.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended to allow sharing of the spectrum between two operators in the same circle. The spectrum should be of the same bandwidth. This will benefit the private telecom operators in a big way.

The Committee appointed by the Rajkot CEC Meeting of BSNLEU with Com.P.Asokababu, Vice-president as Convener,to finalise our view on the Merger of BSNL and MTNL proposed by the Government/BSNL Management will meet today, 19th July 2014 at KG Bose Bhawan, New Delhi.

SCOVA Meeting Postponed.

It is intimated by SCOVA that owing to unavoidable circumstances, the 25th meeting of the Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA) earlier proposed to be held on 24th July, 2014 under the Chairmanship of Hon’ble MOS (PP) will be rescheduled.The date, time and venue of the SCOVA meeting will be notified on finalization.

The panel headed by former RBI Governor C.Rangarajan is on the same path as the earlier committees on defining poverty. The committee has stated that those spending below Rs. 32 in rural and Rs. 47 in towns will be treated as poor. This is atrocious, to say the least. The line has got to be upgraded much more.

Even according to this standard there are 29.5 % of the population viz. about 40 crores people who are below the poverty line. The situation is worse than many African Countries.

The report is going to raise a lot of questions on the government in the country.

ASIA, CONSTRUCTION, HEALTH AND SAFETY, INDIA
Construction workers Federation Of India (CWFI) expresses its deep concern about the death of construction workers in Chennai, Capital Of Tamil Nadu.
On 28th June,2014 at Moulivakkam in Chennai, a 11 storey under Construction building got collapsed. According to, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mrs. Jayalaithaa 72 Construction Workers were Trapped under the Debris.Till Date, the Death toll has touched 55. CWFI deeply mourns the death of the workers. Initial probe reveals that the Madurai Based Developer company ‘prime Sristi’ has not adhered to approved plans. There were gigantic flaws in that construction.
The Migrant Construction workers mostly belong from Andhra Pradesh and Odissa. Tamil Nadu Government already set a one man probe commission headed by an ex-judge. The Police have detained six people including the promoters and developers. CWFI observes that is not enough. CWFI strongly demands that Tamil Nadu Government must provide Ex-gratia of Rs. 10lac to the families of dead workers and Rs. 1 lac to the families of injured workers. CWFI also demand a CID enquiry to the incident.
The incident is really an eye opener, CWFI demands Government should implement strictly the regulations and Safety norms for the Real Estate and developer companies thus the Migrant Construction workers should not bear the brunt of the menace.

WFTU denounces the criminal negligence of the employer and joins its voice with its affiliate CWFI of India on their fair demands.