Agricultural Workers-Deepening Poverty

October 7, 1978 against whom overt action had been taken, reports are that some have had to be reinstated on recommendations from official quarters and local authorities. It is a known fact that political parties and politicians arrange with private industry dealerships, distributorships and other such 'enterprises' which are highly profitable in shortage conditions. Industry in turn receives back in terms of licences given or refused, price increases granted or delayed, labour troubles allowed or repressed. For instance, while arbitrating the increase in wage to 85,000 workers in 55 factories of the cement industry, which is to cost the industry Rs 10 crores annually, one of the two members of the arbitration board is reported to have blithely suggested that this would mean a price of crease of paise per bag of cement. And even while suggesting that external aid from financial institutions and its profligate dividend policies were leading the cement industry into uneconomic financial management practices, and that decontrol was inadvisable given the oligopolistic nature of the cement industry, the National Productivity Council seems to have failed to take a stand on 'controlled' price increases. The industry, meanwhile, following upon a recent price increase of Rs 4.70 per tonne against Rs 3 it had demanded, is getting ready to request another increase in the retention price which is currently Rs 165.82 per tonne.