UP `dismisses' strikers; talks on

UP `dismisses' strikers; talks on
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU & AGENCIES

NEW DELHI, JAN 19: Adopting a carrot-and-stick policy to get the striking power employees back to work, the UP Government today ``dismissed'' all those who didn't return to work but kept the door open by initiating talks at all levels and even released some union leaders. Meanwhile, all port operations across the country continued to just about limp along despite the Army and Navy's help for the second day today.

Till late tonight, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was himself reviewing the progress on resolving the situation on both fronts. He chaired a high-level meeting this evening which was attended by the ministers for defence, power, labour and surface transport besides the Minister of State for Power, a PMO official said. The Government is exploring the possibility of approaching the courts to declare the port strike illegal since talks with the port unions are still going on.

In UP, the Government showed it meant business by ``dismissing'' the strikers and getting officials of the NationalThermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to man all power stations. It has, however, kept a window open for dialogue and said that while the workers ``stood dismissed'', the actual process of serving termination notices would have to wait till reports from the respective district administrations are received. Chief Secretary Yogendra Narain said the Government was willing to talk to the employees about everything except revoking the order trifurcating the UPSEB.

State Energy Minister Naresh Agrawal, in the meantime, decided to release two union leaders, Girish Pandey and Sarveshwar Dwivedi, to facilitate talks with their side. They had been earlier arrested under the National Security Act.

While the Government, both in Lucknow and New Delhi, said the power situation in UP had normalised completely, power trade unions pooh-poohed the claim. In Delhi, Power Minister Kumaramangalam said there was full availability of power in the state on the fifth day of the strike NTPC engineers were ensuring full generationfrom UPSEB plants and the rest was being made up from the grid. He added that 700 engineers of the UPSEB had also rejoined work.

Shailendra Dubey, a leader of the employees union, however claimed in Lucknow that the Government was presenting a wrong picture and the strike was near-total. ``Our strike has crippled the distribution and generation of electricity and the situation is likely to worsen if the Government continued to be tough.'' The Government has arrested 5,078 power men so far, and released 1,099 after they gave written undertakings saying they had nothing to do with the strike.

The UP Powermen Action Committee spokesperson said that drinking water supply had been badly hit in at least 55 of the state's 83 districts. Several areas in the state also reported blackouts for several hours.Meanwhile, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court today issued notices to the chairmen and managing directors of all the three newly-created electricity corporations in the state, asking them to explainwhy employees of the erstwhile UPSEB were still to join work which amounted to violation of an order passed earlier by this court.

The division bench, comprising Justice Jagdish Bhalla and Justice R D Mathur, of the Lucknow bench passed the order on a public interest litigation filed by one Shravan Bhargava. The division bench had on January 14 held the strike illegal.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, the country's busiest port, services were badly affected, with agents expressing their inability to unload ships. Port sources said that at least eight ships were waiting in the harbour for berthing. Small amounts of liquid cargo handling took place at Mumbai and certain other ports like Chennai and Calcutta. In Mumbai, of the three vessels in the Indira docks, one with 800 tonnes of cargo left without unloading as the agents had not filed the necessary papers. Three oil tankers and one with chemicals were unloading at Butcher Island with the help of officers assisted by the coast guards and home guards. JNPT chairmanM P Pinto said a tanker with edible oil was due later tonight while another two container vessels are also expected to dock in.

Four general cargo vessels berthed at the Kandla port were carrying food grains, soya and containers. Five more ships are waiting to be berthed, its Chairman said. Movement of coal vessels continued normally at Chennai port and authorities said two more tankers carrying oil products were expected to be berthed later on Wednesday. But all other traffic, including container movement, was at a complete standstill.