21st day of hunger strike, no hopes for PDF youth

Mangaloretoday News Network

Mangalore, March 21: The elected representatives of DK and its administration has broken their promise of providing jobs to the trained youth of MSEZ’s Project Displaced Families (PDF), who are currently on indefinite hunger strike in front of the DC’s office.

 

 

 

 

On March 6, MP Nalin Kumar Kateel assured the PDF youth that he would convene a meeting at the DC’s office on March 21 to discuss the problem. Elected representatives of the district and higher officials of MRPL were expected to participate in this meeting. However, no meeting has been convened as promised and no elected representative has spoken to the protestors.

When the protestors inquired about it, Additional Deputy Commissioner Prabhakar Sharma said that the meeting has been postponed to April 25 as the concerned officials are not in Mangalore. Damodar, one of the PDF youth, said that neither the district administration nor the state government has taken any steps to resolve the issue in spite of it being the 21st day of their hunger strike.

Around 200 PDF youth, who have completed the training and who are currently being trained at the Karnataka Polytechnic (KPT), are participating in this protest. Around 186 candidates have completed the training provided by the company and 188 candidates are still undergoing job training. A majority of them had discontinued their studies following the company’s assurance that they would get high-salary jobs as soon as they finished their training.

The protestors are demanding immediate recruitment of all 186 trained people in ONGC or MRPL and a written assurance of employment for the 188 youth who are still under training. They are also demanding a compensation of Rs. 30 lakh to each candidate if the companies cannot provide jobs.