Shillong, August 19: A delegation of the Khasi Students Union Nongtrai Unit along with of residents of Nongtrai village has slammed Lafarge for its inability to address the demands made by them to appoint one person from each of the 276 households in the village in its limestone factory.
In this connection the KSU has also stated that this is an absolute failure of the Executive Committee of the dorbar shnong of Nongtrai village.
Addressing newsmen here on Friday, KSU Nongtrai Unit general secretary Trulywell Lyngdoh said. “We are deeply concern with the actions of the firm since in the past week the Director of the firm Nariaian Sharma had assured us that answers to our demands will be revealed today, however we did not get any word from them.”
He said the Union have learned that Lafarge does not want residents of Nongtria to come in 2 or 3 buses but only a selected few should come an attend the meeting today.
“This unwillingness of the firm to meet the people of Nongtrai village clearly shows the white lie of the firm and it’s oppression on the rights of the people,” he alleged.
The union informed that as per the report of the Environmental Impact Assessment which the firm have submitted earlier this year clearly shows that there are 547 employees in the firm.
“The dorbar shnong of Nongtrai village has constituted a special committee and later the committee had asked the firm to produce the Epic card, police verification, labour licence and work permit of all the 547 employees working with the firm excluding the Khasi community, however the firm was unable to give us the required details,” he said adding that this shows that the firm has no respect for the committee constituted by the dorbar.
With regards to this he said, “We have come to the conclusion that Lafarge does not have 547 employees as claimed by them which means there are still plenty of vacancies which can be filled with the residents of Nongtrai village and secondly the firm does not have employees with proper documents.”
The Union request the state government departments in charge of inspecting the labour licence and working permit to conduct an inspection at the firm (Lafarge) because till date the firm has not been able to give proper details to establish the legality of its employees.
Informing that the firm had from time to time stated that many residents of Nongtrai village are not qualified to work in the firm, he said, “In this current generation there are plenty of qualified youths who have completed various professional courses right form b\business administration, MBA, civil engineering etc.”
Lynda Lyngdoh a resident of the village said, “My son had passed MBA and I had submitted his bio data at the firm for the past 2 years but till today the firm has not taken any decision to appoint him.”
Meanwhile, Treswell Lyngdoh informed that in the year 2014 in a dorbar meeting he had opinion that there is a need for the resident of the village to get a copy of the signed agreement between the firm and the village. However till date the residents of Nongtrai have yet to receive a copy.
In this regard Lyngdoh has also filed a Right To Information (RTI) at the office of the Headman of the village B Lyngdoh.
He said, “In 25 years holding the position of headman by Lyngdoh there has not been any transparency especially when it comes to Lafarge.” He further stated that the reason why the dorbar is unwilling to circulate the agreement is maybe because there are some provisions in the agreement which is not benefiting for the residents of Nongtrai village.
