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Day-long strike against privatisation of Salem Steel Plant

Coimbatore : Protesting against the proposed privatisation of Salem Steel Plant, the employees Friday struck work to bring their opposition to the Centre''s attention.

There are nearly 1,500 permanent and 1,000 temporary workers, with 2,000 families depending on the plant, with more than 2,000 people indirectly benefiting by it.

The Centre has invited bids to privatise three plants belonging to Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), including the one in Salem, 150 KMs from here.

The employees had indulged in strike against the privatisation of the plant on earlier occasions also. This time the Centre appeared to be more stubborn to sell the shares to the private entrepreneurs, along with the over 200 acres of vacant land, CITU sources said.

As announced, the employees began their one day token strike from 6 AM and staged demonstration in front of the plant, raising slogans against BJP-led Government, police said.

There would be a production loss of over 1,000 tons due to the one day strike and the agitation in many forms will continued if the proposal was not withdrawn to save this rs.15,000 crore worth unit, the sources said.

Seeking the support of the all political parties for their struggle, the employees wanted them to bring in a special calling attention motion in the State Assembly against the proposal, they said.

The plant is one of the largest PSUs in the State and located in the home district of Chief Minister, K Palanisamy, they said.

The agitators prevented a few workers from going to work.

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