‘No salaries in last 18 months’: Workers who made parts for ISRO satellite launches stage protest

On August 23, Indians celebrated as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the south pole of the moon, making India the fourth country to achieve this feat.

A month later, workers of the government-owned Heavy Engineering Corporation Limited, who say they manufactured parts that were used by the Indian Space Research Organisation to launch satellites, including Chandrayaan-3, allege that they have not been paid salaries for the last one-and-a-half years.

“We have been protesting for weeks in Ranchi,” said Bhawan Singh, the 76-year-old president of the workers’ union at Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd.

Established in 1958, the Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd is based in Ranchi and is one of the largest integrated engineering establishments in the country. The public sector undertaking provides equipment for crucial sectors such as defence, railways, mining and space research.

On September 20 and 21, a group of employees, including Singh, gathered at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to protest.

On Thursday, with a 10-foot-high cardboard cutout of a satellite launch vehicle behind him at the Jantar Mantar protest, Singh spoke into the mic. “We have come here to tell [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi that workers have woken up,” he said. “Our children do not have milk. We are unable to pay their school fees. We want...

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