Senior Congress member Motilal Vohra in Rajya Sabha today said 185 mini steel plants in Chhattisgarh were facing problems due to shortage of raw material and rising power tariff.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, he said the steel plants provided jobs to over 50,000 people.
While the BJP government in the state was not facilitating supply of raw material to the mini steel plants, it was increasing power tariff.
Vohra accused the state government of not taking any concrete step to promote the industry in the past 16 years.
K K Ragesh (CPI-M) said that in a "retrograde step", the Union Labour Ministry has denotified 226 depots of Food Corporation of India "so as to bring back labour contract system".
It is the responsibility of the Labour Ministry to ensure that all labour laws are implemented properly, including abolition of contract labour, he added.
Ahmed Hassan (TMC) said Alliance Air, a subsidary of Air India, has drastically reduced its services in the North East. He said earlier the airline was operating 65 flights a week, but not there are apprehensions that the services may be closed down.
Tapan Kumar Sen also (CPI-M) demanded that services of Alliance Air should be restored.
Ronal Sapa Tlau (Cong) talked about accidents on highways in 10 hilly states of the country.
He suggested that the central government should ask hilly states to identify the landslide prone areas and demanded more budget for these roads. The mechanical division of the PWD should immediately deploy their machines, he suggested.
