The Rediff Special
The bonus matter exposed the government's self-indulgence and lack of planning
Ministers who didn't have problems of bonus payments -- Jalappa
and Srikant Jena -- spoke up in favour of the finance minister.
However, when port workers's demands were discussed, the telecom
minister stayed quiet, because he knew his ministry would have
to concede a similar demand; when the problem of paying railway
workers arose then Indrajit Gupta sat quiet; and Ram Vilas Paswan
sat quiet as a mouse throughout, because it was the railway workers
whose demand for bonus created the maximum financial problems
for the government.
On the day the strike broke, there was a whole lot of people ready
to take credit. Sitaram Kesri rang up the prime minister and told
him the bonus issue would be reviewed; and Srikant Jena brought
Sitaram Yechury of the CPI-M to petition the prime minister to
pay bonus.
The demands of telecom workers were outrageous: not only did they
want 64 days bonus as against 52 days given to them last year,
they also claimed that they had increased productivity. The telecom
minister, Beni Prasad Verma, produced the figures: telephone department
workers said out of 242,000 complaints, 189,000 had been cleared
in 24 hours.
This was highly suspect and was questioned. How was this data
arrived at? Chidambaram asked if there was even one member who
could put his hand on his heart and say that he had dialled 197
and got the operator straightaway; and that if he hadn't had to
listen to music, he would pay the bonus immediately.
He cited a hundred other consumer complaints which made nonsense
of the claim that telecom employees had actually worked so hard
that they deserved more bonus than they got last year. However,
get their bonus they did.
H D Deve Gowda intervened, 'Twice the finance minister cautioned
us and twice I ignored him. I should have listened to him,' he
said. He described how he had dealt with public sector strikers
in Karnataka - in that state, no government employee gets bonus.
The bonus matter was never resolved. But it exposed the government's
self-indulgence and lack of planning. The same thing happened
in the issue of India's defeat in the UN Security Council.
Sunday magazine
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