Elections 2019: VIP Constituency Rae Bareli Weeps for Revival of Its Industries

Rae Bareli: Prakash Jadaun, 58, sits on a dharna every Saturday with a demand of compensation from the government for the lay offs in the Indian Telephone Industry (ITI) Rae Bareli unit.

Jadaun, who was working as an assistant engineer, was one of those who was laid off in 2008 when the production of telephones in the industry saw a huge fall with the advent of cheaper mobile phone services in India.

He says that he was amongst 159 people who were given an early retirement by the industry and no effort was done by the government for these people to get recruited into any other industry then.

“There was some problem with my papers, due to the clerks of ITI. I do not know whether it was done intentionally or unintentionally, but because of this, I am yet to receive the compensation from the government. I have been fighting this case in the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court since then and yet to receive a order in my favour,” he says.

Jadaun is now a farmer and he travels from Etawah every Friday night to Rae Bareli just to protest. He is also fighting a case in the district court for the revival of industries in the district.

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Ram Bir Yadav, 52, is a diploma holder from a government recognised university and was working as a technician at Upcom Cables, a cable manufacturing company, which closed its operations in the early 2000s.

Yadav has received close to Rs 2 lakh as a solatium for early retirement. Using this money he opened an electronics shop near his house at the Ratapur intersection.

The father of two says that it is becoming very difficult for him to raise kids and support his family as he is not able to mint profit from his electronics shop.

“The kids are growing and with time their demands are also increasing. If I would have been in the factory then I think it would not have been that tough but this business has not seen any growth in the last eight years. I have been forced to use all my savings and have kept my house on mortgage as I had to pay for the engineering coaching class for my son,” he complains.

He further says that a group of people from the same factory met local MP Sonia Gandhi, the then MLA and several people requesting them to help in reviving the industries of Rae Bareli but the efforts did not yield any results.

“Whatever we did with a hope to get our industries started never paid any results. Every person we met gave us a fake assurance that they will get the industries started but more industries have been shut. This is the condition of Rae Bareli which is regarded as one of the most high profile constituencies in India,” he says.

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Amresh Patel, a local scribe working as a stringer for a national Hindi channel says Rae Bareli was one of those cities in Uttar Pradesh which actually witnessed industrialisation but the government failed to keep it running.

“After Kanpur, Rae Bareli had the maximum industries. There was a cement manufacturing unit, a cable manufacturing company, asbestos sheet company and many others but everything has been shut because the government failed to keep them running. During the Kargil war, the cable manufacturing unit of Rae Bareli helped a lot but the same industry could never see the light of the day post 2000,” he says.

The government representatives started many educational institutes in this city but did not create enough stations for employment generation here.

“Whatever the city had, it has been snatched from it. The city very seriously needs the revival of its industries, because a lot of youth have been forced to migrate to other cities in search of jobs,” says the veteran scribe.

Aditi Singh, Congress MLA from the area, on being asked about employment generation, said that the Congress government gave NIFT and other institutes to this city, and that the revival of industries is in the party’s plan of action. However, she declined to take any more question saying she was busy with the election campaigning.

Rae Bareli goes to poll on May 6 with sitting MP and Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi running for office again. Contesting against her is her old aide Dinesh Singh, on BJP ticket.

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