UDAIPURA/PALATANA, Aug 9 (TIWN): After tolerating the continuous unbearable attitude of Vice President Sudin Chatterjee for the last few months OTPC helpers ccreateda deadlock since Sunday by calling a strike in the plant. The strike is called due to non-payment of Sunday wages. According to a highly placed source in OTPC it is learnt that ever since assuming the post of Vice President Sudin has been working quite arbitrarily with all the workers , helpers and even with the technical staffs . Being furious with this type of attitude workers once met with Power Minister Manik Dey and Labour Minister Shahid Choudhury . But both the ministers are said to have responded negatively with them and virtually turned down their requests to listen to their problems; rather it is learnt that Manik Dey spoke in favour of Sudin Chattopadhyay defusing the claims of the helpers. VP Sudin Chattopadhyay has been violating the agreement made when S K Dube was the CMD and Mukul Banerjee was the GM.

It is interesting to note that previously before any kind of recruitment advertisements were used to be published in leading local dailies. But once Sudin takes the charge no advertisement is being made published for public notification. 

This is nothing but  complete irregularities as far as the plant is a joint venture of ONGC and Gov't of Tripura. Moreover, even the neighbouring country Bangladesh too is a beneficiary of this plant .

During S K Dube's tenure a written agreement was signed that in case of any recruitment in helper category they would be given salary for the Sundays and other public holidays. These helpers are given the minimum wages fixed by the state gov't. Thus, inspite of hard work these workers are being forced to remain quiet even after getting this very little amount as salary per month . For the last few months they have been demanding for hike in their salary. The helpers' demand is rise of 35-40% of the current salary. Sudin initially agreed to increase 20% . But along with this hike he tries to impose a very strict condition that these helpers won't get salary for the Sundays and other public holidays.

 If the helpers agree with the new salary hike likely to be imposed soon , it would mean that they will lose at least Rs 750-800 per month due to four Sundays and the amount may also increase if there is public holiday is included. Presently they are getting around Rs 6000/- to Rs 7000/- per month. And the imposition of new hike would not give any practical benefit to them. They tried to negotiate with OTPC officials but Sudin being quite arrogant , negotiation totally failed . And as a result of it OTPC helpers called a strike in the plant since Sunday, informed a high official of OTPC on Monday night.

 On Monday SP Gomati S Saraswati and Labour Commissioner came to the plant. CITU secretary Dilip dutta also came. They held a long meeting with the agitated helpers. But the end result was not fruitful.

 All Otpc staffs staying inside the plant have been shifted to their Udaipur guest house. Unrest is still on due no non payment of Sunday wages. To make the matter worse one helper , who was working in OTPC  hostel inside the plant, was sacked. This only flamed the fire on anger. However, to avoid any untoward incident a large number of police personnels have been deployed in the plant.