BANGALORE: The start of a racing season gets postponed. The winter Derby is not gone through as scheduled. The summer Derby suffers similarly. Thousands of the sports’ followers, including those who depend on it for their livelihood, get affected one way or the other. But who cares?Surely, not the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) or the so-called professional organisation, in this case, the trainers’ association. Trainers who have not led in a winners out of 250 saddlings in a season drive to the turf club in an imported car. But the worthy is not prepared to extend basic benefits like Provident Fund etc to the syces he employs in his own stables. Let the BTC pay, he says. It’s as simple as this: You employ a watchman at home. At the end of the month when he wants his salary, you direct him to your employer. Your employer will naturally refuse to pay and your watchman goes on strike. You then want your employer to negotiate with him and ensure that he guards your house.The problem crops up at every opportune time. The BTC agrees to a temporary solution and then it comes back to haunt them again. This has been happening for more than a decade now. Trainers are watching the drama unfold with more than mere curiousity. All this with the bigger axe all set to drop down at the BTC as the Supreme Court will hear it’s application for survival itself on July 19.It is rather shocking that an entire set of educated and rich section of people should put daily wage labourers like the syces to more hardships. Various authorities have upheld the fact that the BTC is not the employer but the trainers. Yet, nothing seems to happen. Trainers in Mumbai and Kolkata have formed a society and all contributions are deposited in the society which takes care of all such requirements. Despite having these examples and also saddling horses in their company during the summer season here itself, trainers licensed by the BTC are reluctant to initiate steps to assume responsibility for payment of PF to their own syces. The matter is in court but the parties concerned do not have the patience to wait for the court verdict. They chose to disrupt racing every now and then. The patience of the racing public is wearing thin. The media’s efforts at providing coverage is negated as there is wastage of precious newspaper space when the scheduled events are not held, for whatever reasons.The BTC has witnessed many a chairman come and make statements that everything is okay and all problems are solved. He is proved wrong before the season ends. It’s time the BTC brings a finality to this nagging problem. All they can and must do is to halt racing until the trainers accept their responsibility and ensure that their syces do not hold everyone to ransom when ever they want to.
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