PDF youth withdraw protest against MSEZ

The meeting was attended by MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, District in-charge minster Krishna J Palemar, MLA N Yogish Bhat MLAs N Yogesh Bhat Abhayachandra Jain, MLC Captain Ganesh Karnik Deputy Commissioner Chennappa Gowda, City Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh Coastal Development Authority Chairman Nagaraj Shetty and others.

The representatives of the protesters confirmed that the youth have ended their 14 day blockade of the corridor road leading to Mangalore SEZ, just after the railway level crossing at Jokatte, following announcement of a new package in the meeting.

It was decided in the meeting to revise the government order issued earlier, which had laid several conditions and norms for recruiting the candidates.

Speaking to the media persons, following the meet, District-in-Charge Minister informed that MRPL, OMPL, ISPRL and MSEZ have come to consensus to hire 1,063 job aspirants from Project Displaced Families directly, without imposing any prior condition. As agreed earlier, MRPL has to recruit 183 candidates out of which it has already provided jobs to 86 youth and it will hand over the job offer letters to remaining candidates within three months, he said.

“OMPL has to provide jobs to 302 candidates out of which it has already recruited three people. Among the rest 299 candidates, 143 youth will be recruited within next 18 months and the remaining 156 trained youth will be given job letters and hired later. Among 58 job aspirants, ISPRL will employ 14 candidates, while rest of the 44 candidates will be recruited in the later stage. Among the remaining 520 job aspirants to be recruited by MSEZ, four have been already given the job and rest 516 candidates will be hired in later,” informed Palemar.

He said that all the job aspirants will be recruited by the companies within three years and till then the unemployed trained youth will be given monthly stipend of Rs 10,000 each. The priority will be given to the first batch students who have undergone three year diploma training, followed by the next batch of students, he said.

MSEZ will form a trust including the District-in-Charge Minister, the MP, the DC and others to decide on the stipend details. He said, the revised government order will reach the PDFs within 15 days.

Responding to the decision taken up in the meeting, R N Shetty Kalavar from Project Displaced Family's Association informed that they would believe the decision only after he receives the minutes of the meeting. The minutes are expected to reach PDFs by Tuesday evening. With the Monday's meeting, four month long conflict between the job aspirants and the MSEZ authorities seems to have come to an end.