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ChPT board meet soon to clear pact with P&O

Raja Simhan T.E.

CHENNAI, May 6

A SPECIAL board meeting of the Chennai Port Trust (ChPT) is likely to take place in the third week of May to clear the concession agreement to be signed with the private operator, P&O Ports, Australia, for the container terminal.

It may be recalled that in March, a special board meeting was held to clear the concession agreement. However, the decision was deferred for the next meeting.

At the ChPT board meeting held recently, a majority of the issues which were considered as hurdles in the project such as monopoly and certain clauses in the concession agreement (signed between the Ministry of Surface Transport and P&O), were discussed and sorted out.

The Chairman of ChPT, Mr P. Baskaradoss, told Business Line that except for the labour issue, all the other issues were sorted out at the meeting. The labour unions have approached the Regional Labour Commissioner (RLC) with their problems on issues conc erning labour interest, he said.

``Even though there was an absolute majority at the board meeting to clear the agreement, we wanted to have the consent of the labour trustees too. The agreement is, however, more or less through,'' he said.

The Chairman said a reconciliation meeting with the RLC to discuss the labour issue would take place on May 14, after which a special board meeting would be called to clear the agreement.

The labour representatives wanted the board to first resolve the issues concerning labour interest, before the agreement was approved. The labour representatives also wanted a correction in the concession agreement to protect the interest of the labourer s.

As per the concession agreement, only two options are available for the workers of the container terminal, either be part of P&O or opt for a VRS. The workers are opposing both, and

instead, wanted to be retained by the port trust.

They said the Ministry is pushing the port trust to clear the agreement, and hand over the terminal to P&O, at the earliest. As per the original plan, P&O Ports was supposed to start work from January this year.

Meanwhile, the workers at the container terminal inside the Chennai port are planning to `go slow' from Monday in protest against the non-implementation of their long-pending incentive scheme.

Negotiations have been going on for the last few years for a productivity-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, but talks between workers and the ChPT management have been inconclusive.

Mr Baskaradoss said a meeting with the workers is to take place on Monday to sort out the problem. ``We have already forwarded a scheme to the Ministry, and are awaiting its response,'' he said.

In January, the workers went on a `go slow' for over two weeks affecting work at the container terminal. As a result, productivity came down to less than 50 boxes per shift/per gang, compared to a handling of over 125 boxes per shift/per gang handled bef ore the `go slow'.