The Water Transport Workers Federation of India has raised its concern over the Shipping Ministry’s move to replace the Major Port Trust Act 1963 with a new act.

Pointing out that the new Major Port Trust Act 2015 would be detrimental to ports and workers, the Federation has decided to observe a national protest day on March 10.

A decision to this effect was taken at the just-concluded workshop at Chennai, said T Narendra Rao, General Secretary of the Federation said.

The Federation also demanded that the labour trustees elected by the workers through secret ballot at JNPT should be immediately appointed to the JNPT board of management. Rao told BusinessLine that the Indian Ports Association, the governing body of major ports in the country, is also placing pre-conditions to port workers federation with regard to productivity linked rewards (PLR) on the basis of port-wise instead of the present way of calculating it on all-India basis.

The two-day workshop also demanded to stop all the further proceedings to delink the Haldia Dock Complex from the Kolkata Dock System, which is also part of Kolkata Port Trust since 1977.

Considering the adverse reports on PPP/BOT projects in the port sector by CAG, the Federation said that the Ministry should execute all the future port development projects instead of awarding them in BOT or PPP mode.

All these issues would be highlighted during the observance of the protest day and the Federation would submit a representation to the respective chairmen of major ports and IPA, he added.

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