The Telangana People’s Assembly, a four-day initiative by the NGOs and citizens’ groups, has been kicked off on Friday, with academic and intellectual G. Haragopal expounding the neo-liberal policies prevailing in the State and the country.
In the inauguration session, rights activist Kaneez Fatima spoke of discrimination against Muslims by the police and the government representatives, with special reference to the attitude against Tablighi Jamaat followers during early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Activist Sujatha Surepally expressed concern about the situation wherein NGOs and academicians are not able to do any constructive work, while Rachana, representative of Telangana Hijra and Transgender Collective, called for establishing a Transgender welfare board, addressing their housing issues, and demanded OBC reservation for trans people as directed by Supreme Court.
In the first session, an overview of the crisis in the employment and livelihood sectors was presented by the editor of Veekshanam magazine, N.Venugopal, Ananth Mariganti of Hyderabad Urban Labs, and representatives of IFTU Beedi Workers Union, besides several others including domestic workers, sanitation workers, construction and brick kiln workers, beedi makers, street vendors, and representatives of cab drivers.
A detailed resolution was passed on the policy measures to be taken by the government to address the livelihood distress, which include basic income support of ₹10,000 every quarter for every working adult, an urban employment programme to build basic infrastructure, and full implementation of the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act (2008), among others.
A special Act for Domestic Workers, rehabilitation of manual scavenging workers, allowance to all beedi workers, and enforcement of reduced commission from drivers by Ola and Uber too were demanded.
In the second session, researcher Usha Seetalakshmi, advocate Ch. Ravi, Dalit Bahujan Front activist P Shankar, and anti-Mallannasagar project activist Hayatuddin spoke about land reforms, redistribution, Dalit land rights and problems of the displaced.
The discussion also touched upon forest resources, laws, forest rights, adverse effects of green belt, and misuse of CAMPA funds.
Resolutions were passed in favour of halt on the diversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural activities, disallowing those who do not farm from buying agricultural land, implementation of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 in its true spirit, and revision of market value of the land.
This was followed by a session about environmental concerns and climate change. At the end, a demand charter was collectively prepared for each sector.