The central BJP government must cut every kind of tax burden on petroleum products: CITU

18 November 2021

A resolution adopted by the CITU all-India General Council meeting that concluded in Hyderabad demanded that the BJP government withdraw its measures raising the prices of petroleum products and cooking gas through various tax burdens.

The General Council decided to hold solidarity rallies across the country, together with farmers' organisations, on November 26, the first anniversary of the farmers' struggle, and to organise extensive campaign programmes, including campaign marches, in November and December for the success of the two-day strike called by the joint trade unions in January 2022.

The council demanded that the central government take social security measures to protect working women, raise the EPF pension to Rs 9,000 and raise the national minimum wage to Rs 21,000. The CITU declared support for the agitations in various sectors raising demands including abandoning the privatisation of central public sector industries such as BPCL; recognising scheme workers such as ASHA, anganwadi, school cooking and NHM workers as permanent workers and protecting their jobs; and paying Rs 7,500 a month to all families below the income tax limit until Covid ends. A convention of central public sector trade unions will be called in New Delhi in January to strengthen the agitation against the sale of national assets and to consider a strike by public sector workers. The CITU all-India General Council meeting asked the Union Textile Ministry to take immediate steps to reopen and run the 23 closed factories of the Textile Corporation.

In the three-day General Council, C V Chandrababu, T K Rajan, S B Rajan, Sunitha Kurian, K Jayaprakash, K P Mary, P P Prema, L Geetha and Manjunath from Kerala spoke in the discussion on the second day.

General secretary Tapan Sen replied to the discussion on behalf of the CITU central secretariat. CITU national leaders Dr K Hemalata, A K Padmanabhan, Anathalavattam Anandan, Elamaram Kareem, K Chandran Pillai, J Mercykutty Amma, K K Divakaran, P Nandakumar and Varadarajan also took part. J Mercykutty Amma on the resolutions committee, Adv. Saji on the minutes committee and T P Ramakrishnan on the credentials committee represented Kerala. K N Gopinath, Dr Pradeep and Deepa K Rajan led the simultaneous translation. Ajith and Rajesh from Kerala served on the registration committee.

The resolution moved by Elamaram Kareem said the 'New Education Policy 2020', overriding the states, is an RSS agenda to communalise education, and demanded that the new education bill be withdrawn.