SANITATION WORKERS CALL OFF STRIKE AMID RIFT
RELIEF Delhi government has agreed to release a grant of `1,100 crore, section of workers say strike will continue
NEW DELHI: Sanitation workers in Delhi have decided to call off their three-day-long strike on Sunday evening after representatives from the Delhi government assured them that their demands would be met.
A section of the workers, however, will continue the strike on Monday.
“We had a meeting with Dilip Pandey (AAP leader) and Delhi social welfare minister Sandeep Kumar and they assured us that the government will give us the remaining portion of the grant by December. We did not want to cause any inconvenience to the people as Diwali is just round the corner,” said Sanjay Gehlot, president of Swatantra Mazdoor Vikas Sanyukt Morcha.
He assured that all the workers would return to work on Monday and the garbage littered on the roads across the city in protest would be lifted.
The morcha is a collective organsiation of 27 unions of sanitation workers across the city. Gehlot said that around afternoon sanitation workers threw garbage outside the residence of Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel and burnedeffigiesof chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Within hours, a meeting was called where their demands were heard and agreed.
Gehlot said that the government representatives had agreed to sanction `1,100 crore to the civic bodies for the payment of all arrears that it owed to the sanitation workers.
But another sanitation workers’ leader Rajender Mehawati accused Gehlot of taking a unilateral decision of calling off the strike.
“This was a personal call which he took without actually consulting the union members. The strike will continue on Monday,” said Mehawati.
There are about 80,000 sanitation workers in the city. The strike started on Friday, as the sanitation workers complained that their basic demands such as payment of salaries, payment of arrears and regularisation of contractual labour were being ignored. A similar strike was called in June this year by sanitation workers over non-payment of salaries.
WORKERS’ LEADER SANJAY GEHLOT SAID THE GOVT AGREED TO MEET THEIR DEMANDS AND ASSURED THAT ROADS WILL BE CLEANED