Waste piles up as sanitation staff refuse to end stir
NEWDELHI: Just two days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – the flagship project of the Centre towards a cleaner country – on October 2, the entire east Delhi is stinking owing to a strike of sanitation workers of the east Delhi municipal corporation (EDMC) since a fortnight.
Garbage can be seen strewn cross nooks and corners of the roads in east Delhi as streets have not been cleaned since the last 18 days.
Sanitation workers are adamant not to return to work until their demands are met.
The sanitation employees have been protesting against non-payment of their salaries and pending arrears.
Among the major demands are regular payment of salaries, clearance of dues and regularisation of contractual sanitation workers, among others. There are around 16,000 sanitation workers in the EDMC.
Several areas, including Laxmi Nagar, Karkardooma, Shahdara, Seelampur, Rashid Market, Geeta Colony, Krishna Nagar, Azad Nagar and Khureji, remained unclean as workers did not report to duty.
In March this year, the sanitation employees had gone on an indefinite strike against nonpayment of their salaries.
The strike had lasted a fortnight. In the last 3.5 years, these employees have gone on strike almost six times.
Sanjay Gahlot, president, MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union, said crores of rupees were being spent by the Centre in the name of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan but no one was bothered about the plight of the sanitation workers who were responsible for its execution on ground.
“We will not participate in any cleanliness drive to mark Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on October 2. We are the soldiers of the cleanliness campaign but we are also the ones who have not been paid salaries since last eight months,” Gahlot said.
On Saturday, the EDMC offi- cials made temporary arrangements to get some areas in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar cleaned but agitating workers opposed the move.
“According to the 4th finance commission, the Delhi government had to pay around ₹1,200 crore to the EDMC. We would be able to give salaries regularly to sanitation workers as soon as the Delhi government gives us funds,” an EDMC spokesperson said.
B S Vohra, president of the east Delhi RWAS joint front, said, “Garbage has not been picked up from streets and people of east Delhi are compelled to live in the filth. To register our protest we have started a campaign called ‘selfi with garbage’ where pictures clicked will be sent to the chief minister and municipal authorities.”
Gahlot said that the workers would hold protests at the EDMC headquarters on Monday to press for their demands.
“Neither the corporation nor the Delhi government is worried about us. They are busy blaming each other. We had asked time from CM Arvind Kejriwal for a meeting to tell him about our problems but to no avail,” he added.