Lockdown woes for staff of ailing PSU

ROURKELA: For 50-year-old Brajendra Banchhor, the lockdown could not have come at a worse time.  Not paid salary for the last 19 months, the employee of the loss-making PSU  Bisra Stone Lime Company Limited (BSLC), used to sell spices on his bicycle to make ends meet. However, with everything closed down and the local stores not giving him spices on credit, he is in a state of utter desperation. Similar is the plight of another employee, 50-year-old Robert who worked as a daily labourer. He is now sitting idle at his home. 

Another employee Basu Sagar too was engaged as a daily wage labourer at an iron plant in the city. He is now out of work. The lockdown has dealt a severe blow to as many as 120 low-paid employees of the company, based at Birmitrapur. Since they are employees of a PSU, they are not entitled to any poverty alleviation or food security programmes. 

Sources said around 70 employees of the firm have mortgaged their ATM cards with local money lenders, who have given them loans at a whopping interest of two per cent per month. General Secretary of Gangpur Labour Union (GLU), a trade union of BSLC, Sandeep Mishra said he started distributing ration kits among the poor in Birmitrapur town and was surprised to find the names of several BSLC workers in the list.

He got disturned and upon inquiry, Banchhod and other workers broke down while narrating their plight. Mishra said a joint delegation of GLU and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh on Saturday met the local management but the latter failed to assure payment of three months of salary to the employees as announced by the Centre. He said BSLC would be closed from Monday. At present, the PSU has around 675 employees including 85 executives on its rolls.