Kerala stands firm as treasury reopens

Kerala Chief Minister A.K. Antony has managed to stand firm for the tenth consecutive day on his decision to slash the benefits of the state's 6,00,000-odd highly unionised employees and teachers, and he appears to be winning.

To add to the chief minister's confidence, the state treasury has re-opened thanks to a last minute bail out by the Life Insurance Corporation, managed through the good offices of the central government.

On another level, the unions have not managed to infuse any fresh excitement into their cadres, and attendance levels in government offices went up yesterday following the decision of several temporary workers to rejoin duty.

"Well done, Antony", wrote a national daily in its editorial yesterday, reflecting some of the accolades the chief minister has been getting from various quarters over the past 10 days, that have even put his adversary in the Congress party, K. Karunakaran, in the shade.

Antony has shown no sign of giving up on his reform agenda and the rallies by the striking unions seem to be losing steam by the day. Attendance in the state Secretariat went up sharply yesterday, with 820 employees signing the muster as against 491 on Thursday.

The situation was similar in many of the districts. In Pathanamthitta, there were 328 employees in the district headquarters yesterday as against the 256 who reported for work on Thursday. Only in Ernakulam a marginal drop in attendance was reported.

But most of the government schools continued to remain closed due to the agitation by school teachers.

In Kozhikode, Democratic Youth Front of India (DYFI) workers clashed with local people when the latter tried to get classes going in some of the schools. However, in most parts of the state, aided and unaided schools functioned almost normally.

The strike also brought into focus the largely unknown levels of unemployment that is rampant in the state. Thousands of people turned up yesterday morning for jobs to remove garbage in the city, and they had to be sent away by police.

Close to 2,000 people converged at the Nanadvanam Police station grounds here, hoping to pick up temporary garbage removal jobs, but police officials told them that there were no more jobs to be given.

Hundreds of job seekers refused to leave the place and police had to use force to disperse the crowd. Some of those who insisted on staying, were later taken away in police vans. Some of the disappointed job seekers later marched to the collectorate and were again involved in clashes with the police.

More arrests were made yesterday under the provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA). Two government employees were arrested in Adoor in Pathanamthitta district, and one sales tax officer in Ponnani was arrested under ESMA.

The indefinite strike of the employees, which completed 10 days yesterday, has dealt a severe blow to the local economy. All sorts of businesses in the state have been hit, especially in the state capital where the economy is propped up by government servants.

Textile shops, cinema halls, automobile showrooms, provision stores and even haircutting salons are struggling to cope with the loss in revenues. Autorickshaw drivers in the capital say that most of them are unable to cough up the Rs100 that they have to pay to hire a rickshaw for a day.

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh general secretary R. Venugopal yesterday called on the state government to drop its adamant stand and find a solution to end the strike.

Venugopal said the government was playing a dangerous game of turning sections of people against each other.