Workers allow transportation of chemical to factory

KARWAR: The row over transportation of rock phosphate from Karwar port to the Solaris Chemtech factory at Binaga in Karwar ended on a happy note with the striking workers giving permission to the management to transport the chemical to factory premises.
With this, the work of transportation of the rock phosphate commenced. The chemical is being imported to the factory for the past several years.But the movement of the chemical from Karwar port was stopped due to the strike of factory workers in connection with the issue of the salary revision. The Lorry and tipper owners associations too had supported the workers.
A large quantity of rock phosphate was lying on the port premises and the port authorities had issued a notice to the factory management to immediately take steps to transport it. The factory management in turn had approached the high court in this connection and the court had issued direction to the Uttara Kannada district administration to provide adequate security to transport rock phosphate from the port to factory.
Though there were attempts to transport rock phosphate on January 20, the workers had requested the lorry owners to wait for some more time as the negotiation on the salary revision issue was in the final stage.
Sources at the workers union said negotiations with the factory management is on and their four month-old strike will end soon.