HYDERABAD: Coalmine workers staged a demonstration outside local press club on FHday in protest against `discriminatory` attitude of Employees Old Age Benefit Institution`s (EOBI) towards their issues.

Habibullah Coal Mining Lakhra workers` union president Jehangir Karamat and general secretary Haji Gul Zahir, who organised the protest, told a press conference later at local press club that EOBI officers were meting out step-mothedy treatment to coalmine workers.

The officers demanded illegal gratification and bribe and only the worker who paid them bribe could get fringe benefits, including pension. The workers who did not pay the bribe were not accepted as workers, they said.

They said that recently a coalmine worker had died but he was not treated as coalmine worker by the EOBl. The institution claimed on the basis of their own definition of law that pension would be given at the attainment of 60 years of age and not at 55, they said.