TN Govt announces 35% wage hike to sugar mills workers
CHENNAI: In a significant move, the Tamil Nadu government on Friday announced a 35 per cent wage hike to around 3,500 employees working in cooperative and public sector sugar mills in the state.
In order to improve the livelihood of the workers, considering their long-standing demand, the Chief Minister has ordered a 35 per cent wage hike for them, read the statement issued by the State Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare department minister M R K Panneerselvam.
This comes after the expert Committee submitted their report to the Government regarding the salary hike of sugar mills workers.
“The basic pay of the workers has been increased to 35 per cent through the current wage hike and a goodwill amount of Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 for a permanent worker and Rs 32,000 to Rs 40,000 for a seasonal worker has been made available for the period up to September 30, 2022. The Chief Minister has also ordered to pay the arrears in cash for the period from October 1, 2022 to till now, ” Panneerselvam detailed.
Criticising the previous AIADMK regime, the agriculture minister said, “While the inactive AIADMK government has left about Rs.675.52 crore as sugarcane arrears, now CM Stalin has paid that to the sugarcane farmers. We are also paying the dues of workers on time. Also, in the previous AIADMK regime, only two cooperative sugar mills were operating profitably, and now 4 cooperative sugar mills are operating profitably. Due to the continuous modernization drive undertaken by us, the losses are reducing significantly every year due to increased efficiency of all co-operative and public sector sugar mills. CM Stalin has given a total of Rs 1223.59 crores to sugarcane farmers and workers for production incentive, special incentive, sugarcane arrears, salary, bonus and essential expenses., the minister said. The setting up of ethanol plant in Kallakurichi-1 sugar mills, the project which was shelved in the last AIADMK regime, had been revived and the co-power project work in the remaining 6 co-operative sugar mills has been expedited and steps are being taken to bring it into operation,” Panneerselvam added.
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