Government Brands Them ‘Anti-Development’

Liberation, 24 July 2007

The industrial area demarcated by the State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttaranchal Ltd. (SIDCUL) in Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, may not be an SEZ – but it is certainly a ‘special’ new type of ‘integrated’ industrial estate – the kind where massive workers’ protests are taboo as is unionisation. Since April, workers of the Bhaskar Energy Ltd. (which produces generators under the brand name Kirloskar) have been involved in a movement which has since spread to involve workers of most of the factories in the region, and this movement in the face of all odds, is challenging the unspoken ban on workers’ struggles in this industrial area. [more]