Shillong, June 17: Meghalaya government’s notification for setting up of a helpline to receive complaints of the aggrieved workers who were supposed to receive cash support has been hailed by Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR) and Workers Power of Meghalaya (WPM) as a major victory for the workers’ movement in the state.
In a statement, the two organizations said this victory has come because of sustained campaigns by the working classes and their organizations in Meghalaya, whereby workers are supposed to receive cash support of Rs. 2100 under the crawl scheme and Rs. 5000 from BOCW.
They said after the public outcry at least some of the beneficiaries have started receiving the amounts due. And now, with this notification for a helpline, TUR hopes that this process of income transfer can be expedited.
TUR along with WPM had used RTI and put the whole list of beneficiaries who were supposed to receive this cash support in the public domain.
“Through surveys and beneficiaries getting in touch with the organization, we found out that many beneficiaries whose names appeared in the list either did not get the cash support or received only partial support,” they said.
The statement also stated that although initially the government continued to claim that most of the transfers had been made, it was clear through the analysis, survey and people’s testimonies that government defence of its actions was completely untenable.
TUR and WPM have already submitted two sets of voluminous complaints consisting of people’s testimonies and analysis of the RTI to the Chief Minister demanding that the government starts a help line where people can complain directly about the non receipt of Rs. 2100 and Rs. 5000.
