KERALA CITU CONFERENCE

CITU STATE CONFERENCES

KERALA

12th Kerala state conference of CITU

The 12th state conference of Kerala state committee of CITU was held on 12 – 14 January 2013 in Kasargode. The conference started with the hoisting of CITU flag by KN Ravindranath, president of the state committee of CITU. Tapan Sen, general secretary of CITU inaugurated the conference which was attended by — delegates and observers from all the 14 districts in the state. Leaders of AITUC, UTUC, BMS, STU addressed the inaugural session. The general secretary’s report was placed by MM Lawrence, general secretary of the state committee while KM Sudhakaran, treasurer, placed the accounts. AK Padmanabhan, president of CITU made the concluding remarks.

The membership of CITU in the state increased from 1274445 in 2008 to 1415170 in 2011 but the conference felt that the full potential could not be realised. The conference self critically analysed the functioning of organisation at all levels in the state, from the state centre to the committees at the district level as well as that of the state federation and union committees during the intervening period after the last conference. The conference identified some shortcomings in the functioning at different levels and adopted certain concrete measures to improve the functioning.

The conference discussed four important issues – ‘some ideological issues’, ‘organisation’, ‘traditional sector’ and ‘welfare schemes’ - in four different commissions. Written papers were presented in all the commissions. 112 delegates participated in the commission ‘on some ideological issues’, 105 delegates participated in the commission ‘on organisation’, 155 in the commission ‘on welfare schemes’ and 130 in the commission ‘on traditional sector’. The gists of the discussions in the various commissions were placed in the plenary of the conference which authorised the newly elected office bearers to finalise the reports by incorporating the suggestions and opinions of the delegates.

62 delegates participated in the discussion over the general secretary’s report. The report and the accounts were unanimously adopted after MM Lawrence, P Nanda Kumar and KM Sudhakaran replied to the points raised in the discussion. The conference also unanimously adopted 24 resolutions on different issues.

A 460 member state general council, 157 member state committee including 30 office bearers were unanimously elected in the conference. Anathalavattom Anandan and Elamaram Kareem were elected as the new president and general secretary of the state committee. KN Ravindranath and MM Lawrence were elected as vice presidents. 3 out of the 30 office bearers are women, an increase by 1 over the last team of office bearers.

A massive rally was conducted on the concluding day of the conference in which around 20000 workers from Kasargode district alone participated. The public meeting organised after the rally was inaugurated by AK Padmanabhan. The meeting was presided over by Anathalavattom Anandan, and addressed by Elamaram Kareem and others. Tapan Sen distributed prizes to the winners of cultural and sports competitions conducted in connection with the conference.

Kasargode district committee has done a commendable work in making the conference a historic success. CITU activists visited almost every home in the district, irrespective of their political affiliations, to collect funds for the conference using Rs 10 coupons. The response of the people was overwhelming. 14 seminars on different topics were conducted in various parts of the district. Cultural and sports competitions were also organised. There was good involvement of people from all sections in all these programmes.