POLITICS IN PRIVATISATION

CONTROVERSY

'Workers have chosen tougher option'

Chattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi has been campaigning across the State against the National Democratic Alliance government in the wake of the Tehelka expose. He claims that the disclosures vindicate his allegation of corruption in high places in the matter of the Centre's privatisation drive. Extending moral and financial support to the workers of Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco), he has reiterated the demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee inquiry into the entire privatisation programme. Excerpts from the responses he gave V. Sridhar in reply to a set of questions sent to him on e-mail:

What is the situation with regard to the striking workers in Balco?

A.M. FARUQUI

Obviously the workers have chosen the tougher option in the face of severe odds. It is their resolve to get the sale (of the company) undone and they are united on this. It is a tribute to their sense of responsibility that the agitation continues to be peaceful despite provocations. Please note that workers subscribing to all shades of political opinion - not just the Congress ideology - are united in this struggle. The workers are on a disobedience movement. They are refusing to work for a private investor, who they feel has taken over the plant through a questionable deal. No law can force unwilling workers to work.

But it is equally true that this should not go on like this. The Congress party has created a fund for the welfare of the struggling workers, and the response has been overwhelming. People from all walks of life are contributing to this fund.

Is there any tangible gain, at least as an interim measure, that you expect from the Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court is the highest forum of justice, and I am confident justice shall be done. The court will certainly see through the game plan of those who have brought Balco to the mess that it is in today. The Government of India is in the forefront of the legal battle virtually on behalf of the investor who has been favoured in the deal.

Do you think the workers have the stamina to carry on the struggle if the Centre drags the case through the courts?

I do not think workers anywhere lack the determination. Yet, there are limits to their patience. It is in the interest of all concerned that there is an early settlement to this crisis. Let no one be under the delusion that it is the workers alone who would suffer if the crisis prolongs.

Is your government turning the heat on Sterlite Industries? The State Budget has raised the entry tax on bauxite rather sharply.

I do not believe in "turning on the heat" on anyone. There is no vengeance as far as the State government is concerned. We have increased the entry tax in order to attract mining activity in the State. Why should bauxite for the plant come from Orissa when it is available in Chattisgarh? On the very day the Union government signed the deal with Sterlite, the company signed a deal with the Navin Patnaik Government in Orissa to source bauxite from there.

Has any tribal citizen of Chattisgarh complained to the court about violation of the constitutional provisions aimed to prevent the alienation of tribal land?

I am told that several tribal people whose land was acquired or who are the legal heirs of those who sacrificed their lands - their only resources - for the public purpose of setting up a public sector undertaking or for its mining leases, have intervened in a notice issued by the Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) under section 165(6) of the State Land Revenue Code.

What has been the progress on the summons issued by the sub-divisional officer (Korba)?

The notice has been served, and to the best of my knowledge, the respondents have sought time to file their reply.

Is the Congress(I) united on its stand against privatisation? Its government in Rajasthan has chosen to remain silent about disinvestment in the Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL), and Hindustan Copper Ltd. (HCL) where government holding is to drop below 50 per cent. Is this not a manifestation of divisions within the party on a major aspect of economic policy?

The Congress reiterated clearly its policy in regard to privatisation at the Bangalore session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in March. We are not against disinvestment, but against privatisation of profit-making public sector units. We are against lack of transparency. The sequencing and prioritisation of which public assets need to be privatised are critical. In the Balco case all these criticalities have been overlooked and the nation has been taken for a ride.

There are no differences in the Congress. I am not aware whether issues such as special protection to tribal people are involved in the case of the two companies you have mentioned. Perhaps in those cases there is no alternative but to infuse private capital, I am not too sure. Everything depends on the merits of each case, and there can be no value judgment. This is precisely our stand, that you should not privatise for the sake of privatisation or because it happens to be fashionable to do so. There should be some rationale behind any decision.

Even in the case of Chattisgarh, we have asked the Government of India whether enterprises such as the Bhilai Refractory Project or the Nagpur Cotton Mills of the National Textile Corporation should not have been taken up for disinvestment first in order to infuse much-needed capital and management efficiencies.

Balco is on a different footing altogether. It is a profit-making company with large reserves. It has been grossly undervalued. It is involved in sensitive production that concerns national security. In the face of these facts, the priority given to the sale of Balco and the unholy haste with which the deal was signed, point to corruption in high places.

The Chattisgarh government has made a counter-offer of Rs.552 crores for Balco. Is this viable given the state of its finances?

The offer has been made before the Honourable Supreme Court of India, and has to be taken with all the seriousness that such an offer before the apex court deserves. We could not have made a flimsy offer before the court. There are commercial options available to us. As for those who ask of our financial position, let me tell you that the Central PSUs alone owe the State Electricity Board close to Rs.580 crores.

How has the Sterlite management conducted itself?

The plant has been kept alive by the workers because they are protective of Balco. Unfortu-nately, the same cannot be said of its new 'management'. A systematic attempt is on to sabotage the plant. They would like Balco to go down so that the public assets worth over Rs.5,000 crores can be dispose of. That would be a real kill indeed. How else can one explain the fact that the Cell House (in the smelter) could be kept alive by the workers till the new 'management' took over. They (the new management) are not managers, they are liquidators who have moved in for disposal (of the company's assets), thanks to the Central government.

In the aftermath of the Tehelka affair, is there anything you would like to add about corruption in high places, with specific reference to the privatisation programme?

The Tehelka affair is undoubtedly a divine intervention in the sense that it strengthens the apprehensions of all those who have found the Balco deal to be unclean. In fact, after the Tehelka disclosures, very little is left to be known about at least some of the key beneficiaries of the Balco deal. The privatisation programme needs to be put under the scrutiny of a Joint Parliamentary Committee. We need to go into the compelling reasons that led the NDA government to allow the Disinvestment Commission to die a natural death. Why did they not appoint a new Commission? After Balco, we now know that they were very uncomfortable with the Commi-ssion. Certainly, a Commission is a transparent and independent institutional arrangement, which would have left them with no freedom to manoeuvre, whereas a Ministry could very well contrive and help crony capitalists.






A rose or a ladder? (short story).


An argument over a Valentine’s Day gift leads shubhranshu choudhary to the politics of an aluminium ladder

On the eve of Valentine’s Day, a friend of my son persuades me to take my wife “out for dinner and buy her a nice gift”. I thank her for the idea but do not ask her to hazard a guess on my choice. She is understandably horrified to hear that I had purchased an aluminium ladder to complement my wife’s new bookshelf, and admonishes me, “You could have bought her a rose.”

I argue that an aluminium ladder is a more ethical gift than a corporate rose.


I invite her to take a look at the politics of corporate roses, grown on leased farms in Asia and Africa. Within a few years, the land is ruined by excessive pesticide and fertilizer use—the only way in which roses can be cultivated, in keeping with demands of European and American markets. Corporate agriculturists move on from one poor farmer’s land to another, after spoiling the first one. I suggest that she should examine the issue in the uk, where she lives, while I take a deeper look at ‘the politics of aluminium’ in Chhattisgarh, where I am to travel. We agree to exchange notes.

I am travelling to my home district, where there is significant amount of bauxite mining; aluminium is its end product. Most inhabitants of Surguja district in Chhattisgarh are tribal. The region has large swathes of thick saal jungles, the land below which are rich with coal and bauxite. Lately, the forests have been dominated by Maoist guerrillas. “At least they listen to our grievances,” one tribal tells me.


A tribal lawyer among miners
Ambikapur is the district headquarters of Surguja. Through a common friend there, I meet Indradev Nag who is a lawyer and trade union leader. A tribal lawyer is a rarity in this region. Nag is also associated with the Communist Party of India, a mainstream political party which is opposed to the guerrillas. He is more of a listener than talker, but slowly opens up. “The fight with the guerrillas is only a smokescreen behind which the administration is helping Hindalco run its mines,” he says.

Hindalco, India’s biggest aluminium company in India, is owned by one of foremost business houses in the country: the Birlas. Nag says, “Hindalco signed an mou with the government that they will give permanent jobs to all who lose their land to the mines. But most mine workers, including those who lost their land, are casual labourers. And Hindalco uses police intimidation to stop trade union activity.”

A few days ago, he was accosted on his way back from a trip to the mines. A jeep bearing Hindalco’s name had pulled up, and some policemen alighted from it. Their leader was a young man in plainclothes. He enquired about one Indradev Nag.

“As soon as I responded, he started beating me. Had his deputy not snatched the pistol from him, he might have killed us. Then the deputy warned me not to come back to the area. We have complained but no case has been registered,” Nag said.

Hindalco is a reputed company and this was hard to believe. I decided to visit the company’s mines. Journalist friends told me that the leader of the police team, who had attacked Nag, is a young man called Dheeraj Jaiswal.

“Jaiswal is a local boy who joined the Maoists a few years ago. He has now changed sides. The police have caught key guerillas with Jaiswal’s help. He uses his influence for other purposes too,” they said. No journalist wants to accompany me when I want to meet Jaiswal.

The road to Hindalco is one of the worst I have ever travelled by.I remember the mou had said that Hindalco would take care of the roads that would be damaged by its bauxite-laden trucks.

It’s my lucky day: I am permitted to visit the mines. Jaiswal is ‘on patrol’. I am asked to meet him on my way back.

Work is on at full swing at the Kudag mines. I request the person in charge to allow me to meet a labourer who has lost his land to the mines. The contractor of RK Jain and Co is surprisingly co-operative and introduces me to Seetaram Nagesia. The contractor tells me, “Nagesia was a Hindalco employee before but he works for us now.”

Coincidentally, it is Nagesia’s farm which is being explored for bauxite that day. He points out: “You see that bulldozer digging there? That was my farm.” We are soon surrounded by many labourers, most of whom have lost their land to Hindalco. Laxman Yadav, their leader tells. “I am among the only three supervisors left on Hindalco’s payroll. The rest of the workers have been passed on to the contractor,” he tells me.

How could Hindalco not keep its word? I think of having a quiet chat with Nagesia to find out. Nagesia’s small mud house is a bit away from the mines. He unrolls a mat for me to sit. His five daughters are playing nearby. “Most of our land has been taken away by Hindalco. The Rs 50,000 compensation went in paying moneylenders. We have to buy all our necessities—from rice to lentils to vegetables. Earlier, Hindalco used to give 2 litres of kerosene every month, they have stopped even that,” says Nagesia. “I can’t afford to send my daughters to school.”

I ask him to show me the Hindalco papers. He goes inside and comes back in few minutes with a plastic packet. According to the papers Nagesia is still a “regular fulltime employee” of Hindalco. So were Nag and Yadav lying? I start studying the papers carefully. Nagesia was indeed employed by Hindalco as a “regular unskilled labourer”. His provident fund slip also showed Nagesia was an employee of Hindalco but his ‘department’ had been changed to RK Jain and Co. Until 2000, his department was the Samripat Bauxite Mines. So was R K Jain the name of a Hindalco department? “No,” I am told, “That is the name of the contractor.”

A study of amounts deposited by the company to Nagesia’s provident fund account is also revealing. Hindalco had deposited Rs 302 and Rs 352 during the first two years of his service. But since Nagesia’s department had changed, the company’s contribution has fallen to Rs 187 and Rs 192 in the past two years. Provident fund contributions are in proportion to salary, so Nagesia’s salary had been halved. “How come?” I ask him. Nagesia tries to explain, “When there is no work, we do not get paid. Earlier, we had to break a tonne of bauxite stones to make a day’s wage. Now, we need to break three to four tonnes.”

We return to the mines, where Laxman Yadav chips in with more information. “Of the 60 from Kudag who got jobs after losing their land, 10 have decided to quit.” He tells me, “In Hindalco mines in nearby states, people doing similar work get double the wages we get. But we are paid less because we are not organized. We want to form a union but are afraid of the police.”

Yadav takes me to the site of a Hindalco office half a kilometre away—it was blown up by Maoists two years ago. Debris from the old Hindalco office is still scattered. Burnt trucks lie there. Hindalco officials were spared by the Maoists during the attack. They had since moved their office to Kusmi.

The labourers want to “show me more”. But I have been advised to be back in Ambikapur before dark so I return, via Samri

At the heavily protected Samri Police Station, one can’t miss two vehicles standing side by side, in service of the police force—an anti-land mine vehicle, and a truck emblazoned with Hindalco’s name.

Jaiswal is ‘waiting’ for me. He is very polite and tells me, “Though my age is 22 officially, I am 18 years old and have no official status with the police. But I have been in charge of this police station since January 7, 2006.” He asks me about my trip to the mines and says, “I hate Hindalco. They are looting this area. They don’t give good jobs to locals. All their skilled workers are outsiders. Don’t we have skilled workers here?” I decide not to ask tricky questions.

Back at Ambikapur, I meet Ashok Sharma of the Deshbandhu newspaper. “We have published a report recently saying that Hindalco has grabbed 2.8 hectares from one Munshiram in Kudag without compensating him. Hindalco has also not paid the family members of many who have lost their lives in the mines. It has not given jobs to people who have lost their land to the mines. Our reporters are afraid of travelling in that area. We got this information from a local tribal leader,” Sharma says.

Is it only Hindalco or is the whole aluminium industry exploitative? I am now keen to visit the bauxite mines of another company, Vedanta, located nearby. Vedanta, a uk -based company, is also known by its old names: Balco, and Sterlite. It also has an aluminium smelter nearby, bought from the government some years back.

I start for Manipat where Vedanta has its bauxite mines, next morning. Manipat is a hill station. The villages on the way are picturesque. The people there tell me, “Temperatures are rising here since mining started. If tree felling continues at this rate, this may soon stop being a cool place. We also fear that streams originating in the hills may dry because of blasting in the mines.”

Big hoardings proclaiming ‘Balco, Pride of the Nation’ welcome visitors to the mining area. As soon as we cross the market we come across some tiny mud and stone dwellings, which we are told are homes of Balco mine employees.

The workers are already at the mines. I meet Savitribai, who tells me, “We came from the plains. My husband has been working in the Balco mines for the past 11 years. He earns around Rs 2,500 a month.” The condition of the settlement is similar to the slums of any Indian city. The children playing around have not bathed for days.

In the mines, I meet an agitated Shivkumari of Kudaridih village. She and her husband Mohandas tell me, “Look at these bulldozers. Our land is being dug but we have not been compensated.”

Kudaridih must once have been a large village with big houses. A few standing houses, and old trees, testify to that. “More than 100 people have lost land to Balco, here” explains Laxman Yadav, a mine labourer. “But only 50 got compensation. The rest have been told that their land is not in official records. We have been tilling these lands for generations. Some of us even have deeds but officials don’t accept them.”

Laxman Yadav takes me to see the land where his house once stood. “I got Rs 50,000 as compensation for my two hectares. In 1992, they demolished my house in the middle of a rainstorm and bulldozed my standing crop. The land that supported generations of my family is all gone now. I live in a rented house.”

I try to meet Balco’s press relations officer, Deepak Pachpore, but he is ‘busy’. I also want to know about the case pending in the supreme court, alleging “the illegal capture of 450 ha by a Balco smelter in Korba, and the illegal cutting down of more than 50,000 trees”. Now back in Delhi, where I live, I am waiting for the Hindalco and Balco officials’ response to my findings.

I also visit the Basti Harfool Singh area near the Sadar Police Station — Delhi’s metal market. Traders there tell me, “Hindalco is the best. Their aluminium ingot is very good quality.” One of them, Vinod Loomba, says, “The British left India many years ago but they still control our lives through the London Metal Exchange, which determines the rates of all the metals here.”

The Sadar Bazar traders give me addresses of aluminium extrusion factories in Uttar Pradesh’s Sahibabad area, where aluminium ladders are made. I hear stories of violation of labour rights in these factories.

I also contact Babu P Remesh of the V V Giri National Labour Institute, Lucknow, who has recently conducted a study, ‘Impact of privatisation on labour: a study of Balco disinvestment’. The study concludes, “The quality of life has deteriorated for Balco workers in the past five years. Many voluntary retirements were coerced.”

When Nagesia, a ‘full time permanent employee’ of Hindalco, told me that he couldn’t afford to send his children to school, I did not have the heart to tell him that his employer had recently bought an American/Canadian company, Novelis, for about us $6 billion, making Hindalco the world’s fifth largest aluminium company. I also could not tell him how proud we urban Indians are of the fact that every can of Coca-Cola manufactured worldwide has an Indian (Hindalco) connection, thanks to that famous merger.

But at least now I can write to my son’s friend accepting defeat, and promising to buy a more romantic gift for my wife next Valentine’s Day.

An aluminium ladder is no better than a corporate rose.

This piece was written on a grant from Panos