ME NEWS BUREAU:
FOLLOWING a gathering with agents of sugar industrial facilities in Maharashtra a month ago, the local Employees Provident Fund (EPF) office in Solapur has asked 61 sugar plants in Solapur, Osmanabad and Latur areas to stretch out EPF advantages to workers occupied with sugarcane cutting and transportation.
Authorities from the local EPF office in Solapur said all these 61 sugar manufacturing plants were a week ago coordinated to begin settlement of EPF duty. Of the 61 sugar processing plants, 41 are in Solapur, 12 in Latur and 8 in Osmanabad. In these three locale, there are around 80,000 sugarcane workers engaged with sugarcane cutting action, said an authority.
"The agents of the industrial facilities said at the gathering in November that the issue had been brought up in 2003 and later shut. We had gotten some information about this, which were not submitted. In any case, we found that the Central EPF office in Delhi had unmistakably said in 2002 that EPF ought to be made pertinent to sugarcane workers.
In light of an inquiry from the Solapur EPF office, the Delhi office again illuminated that EPF is in reality pertinent and requesting that we begin selecting these representatives to profit the advantages," said a senior EPFO official, including that move was not made beforehand because of weight from the sugar campaign.
The authority additionally said the issue of whether sugarcane workers are qualified for EPF was likewise examined in 2002. "The Delhi office plainly said there is a relationship of business and representatives between sugar industrial facilities and sugarcane workers. Henceforth, they ought to be given the advantages of EPF," included the authority.
Another authority said installments to sugarcane workers are reflected to be decided sheets of the industrial facilities. "Obviously the industrial facilities make installments through contractual workers to sugarcane workers. In this way, the EPF for these laborers ought to be deducted from the installments and saved as EPF," said the authority.
In November, the Solapur EPF office held a gathering with sugar processing plants requesting that they begin EPF settlements. The industrial facilities had questioned saying the sugarcane workers are not representatives of the manufacturing plants. The industrial facilities likewise said it is the obligation of the sugarcane cultivator to transport the sugarcane from his field to the production line and they just help them in that work by drawing in mukadams or temporary workers.
The sugar manufacturing plants are presently anticipated that would approach the Maharashtra State Co-Operative Sugar Factories Federation, a peak assemblage of sugar industrial facilities in the state, to determine the issue. "It is a bigger issue that should be tended to by the organization," said a senior office-conveyor of a sugar manufacturing plant in Solapur, asking for namelessness.
Another agent said the state government is setting up a welfare board for sugarcane specialists and this issue can be tended to in that. Hemant Tirpude, territorial EPF official, Solapur, said sugar industrial facilities have been given seven days' the ideal opportunity for stretching out EPF advantages to sugarcane workers. "In the event that they don't
follow up on it, at that point we will begin issuing show cause sees and will make facilitate lawful move," said Tirpude.
