BMS holds protests pan-India against govt’s privatisation policy

New Delhi: RSS-affiliate BMS (Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh) took on the BJP government's privatisation policy towards the public sector with pan-India protests on Friday and declared its intention to keep the fight going till the government yields. Protests were held at every district headquarter in the country and at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. The protest comes days after BMS leaders met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to register dissent against, what it dubbed, were "anti-labour policies" of the government.

'BMS ready to take on govt's privatisation policy towards public sector'

Addressing a gathering at Jantar Mantar, Girish Arya, deputy in-charge, Public Sector Employees National Confederation, an industrial unit of BMS, said, "BMS is determined to take on the government's policies with respect to the public sector." He added, "Privatisation of public sector is not a new phenomenon. Each regime has taken up privatisation whenever they have been in power since the 1970s. It's almost a tradition. Whoever is in power takes up privatisation of public sector with a new aggression that their predecessor. And when the same party loses the elections, they start opposing privatisation." While asserting that Air India could be making losses but its subsidiaries are not, Arya blamed bureaucrats for formulating anti-public sector policies and running the show from behind the screen. The RSS-affiliate has said that after Friday's protests, it will adopt a "wait and watch" approach to see if the government has softened its stance in the upcoming Union Budget and then chalk out the future plan. The Budget Session is likely to start from January 31 and the Budget is expected to be out on February 1.

What are the other demands made by BMS?

Apart from disinvestment, the charter of demands released by BMS includes removal of anti-labour provisions in the labour law codes, a raise in threshold of income tax limit from the current Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh, abolishment of contract labour as well as "fixed term employment" and absorption of all workers into permanent employment, implementation of the code on Wages-2019, re-enactment of the previous pension scheme, among others.

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