The Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving no stone unturned to woo the coal miners of the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), who are spread across six districts and covering 12 assembly segments in the region, by preparing a people’s manifesto by interacting with the coal miners.
A part of the campaign the BJP is taking pains to explain that the Centre holds 49 % stake in the SCCL and it was also responsible for the bonus that was paid to the miners. BJP Singareni manifesto committee chairman S. Kumar along with a member Nanda have been meeting the coal miners in Ramagundam, Mandamarri, Bellampalli, Bhupalapalli and Kothagudem, among others and collecting their feedback for the preparation of local manifesto and state manifesto.
The Singareni is spread over 12 Assembly segments — Sirpur, Chennur, Mancherial, Bellampalli, Asifabad, Ramagundam, Manthani, Sathupalli, Yellendu, Kothagudem, Badrachalam and Bhupalapalli — across six districts Peddapalli, Mancherial, Kumrambheem-Asifabad, Jayashankar-Bhupalapalli, Bhadradri-Kothagudem and Khammam.
IT exemption
Majority of the Singareni miners have urged the BJP to include exemption of income tax for the miners in their manifesto and revival of dependent employment scheme, which has remained a distant dream, Mr Kumar said.
The miners were demanding an increase in medical facilities in the coal belt region by setting up super speciality hospital and a medical college. They also wanted opening up of mining engineering college, ITI and polytechnic colleges in the coal belt region to help the students secure employment in the mines, the BJP leader added.
Open cast mines
The miners demanded stopping the expansion of open cast projects as it was displacing several villagers, he said and added that the miners were asking for more underground mines for the protection of environment from pollution with OCPs and creation of more employment.
He said that they were preparing three stages of manifesto of presenting a charge-sheet against the sitting legislator from each assembly segment, separate manifesto for each Assembly segment and state level manifesto separately.