Mangalore: Thousands of Kuduremukh Iron Ore labourers Union members in Association with DK District Hindu Mazdoor Sabha held a bitter protest meeting in front of DCO gates, on Monday Dec. 23, from 10.30 am to 5.00 pm after a procession of workers was taken from Town hall to the venue, to press for a permanent Iron Ore mine in Karnataka for themselves to carry on mining and to exports pellets from Mangalore port.

The state president of HMS Sureshchandra Shetty addressed the restless gathering on the injustices they face since 2006 when the company activities were folded up on the wrong advice given by corrupt environmentalists and politicians to the state and central governments, when the company was running on profit on exports.

He added that when pipelines for other products had damaged roads and fields, the Kuduremukh pipelines did not spill a single bit of Iron Ore in melted forms coming to Mangalore port to Kuduremukh factories.

Genaral secretary of Kuduremukh labourers Union which still has 1000 members of permanent staff and 4000 members of non permanent staffs, Venkataraya made it clear that not a single Iron Ore mine had been provided for KIOCL workers all these years, despite several memorandums and petitions were sent to state and central govt. from time to time. The public sector company like ours has been neglected by the state government while several private companies were allowed to mine Iron Ore in Bellary, Chitradurga and Tumkur Districts for the gains of ruling politicians.

The government had collected huge amounts of Royalty in cores all these years from KIOCL but it could not provide a single Iron Ore mine within Karnataka to the same company, he added.

Vasantha Achary of CITU, Sunil Kumar Bajal, and Mohammed Rafiq president of Bus employees Union and others took part in the rally.