Congress justifies govt move to shunt Rohini out

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee Labour cell State President S S Prakasham justified and supported the State government’s move to shunt out IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri as Secretary of the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board, as she was working against the interest of the labourers.

Speaking to media persons here on Saturday, he said Rohini had exceeded her brief by disqualifying the membership of the labourers, who had enrolled their names with the board four-five years ago. “Many of the labourers might be working in other professions, as they might have not got jobs in construction industries. Just because they are not a construction labourers doesn’t mean that they are no more labourers. Majority of them are still working in unorganised sectors. Disqualifying them is injustice the labour class,” he said and appreciated the State government for taking that decision.

He also charged that Rohini had withheld the stipend and scholarship to the children of labourers. “She was sitting on Rs 8,000 crore corpus that was collect as cess for the last many years, and not utilising the same for the welfare of the labourers,” he said.

Responding to a question on her efforts to weed out the bogus and ineligible labourers, Prakasham said no one was against her removing names of people who registered with the board by providing fake documents. “We will not even stop her from doing that. But to stop the scholarship and stipend is unacceptable,” he said.