Mysuru: Although they had no cause to protest,
pourakarmikas employed directly by the
Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) on a permanent basis decided to show solidarity with their brethren on Wednesday who are unhappy at being relegated to contracted employees, and deprived of the many benefits that the former are entitled to. Former mayor and chairman of the
Karnataka Safaikarmachari Commission Narayan launched the indefinite
protest by staging a dharna in front of the
MCC office. Besides demanding revocation of the contract system wherein pourakarmikas are employed by private agencies that MCC outsources civic work to, the protesters sought a revision in the pourakarmika to citizen ratio.
Of the nearly 2,500 pourakarmikas in Mysuru city, a meagre 650 are employed by the MCC on a permanent basis, while the remaining are contract labourers, and complaints of exploitation by private contractors are fairly common. The protesting civic workers pointed out that their role had been instrumental in the city bagging the coveted ‘Cleanest City’ tag twice in a row in 2014 and ’15.
“When Siddaramaiah was the chief minister, he proposed a slew of welfare schemes and reform programmes for pourakarmikas, which included abolition of the contract system. But, MCC continues to persist with the contract system, and has not regularised our jobs. The HD Kumaraswamy-led government must attend to this problem on a priority basis, and abolish the contract system followed by the MCC immediately. Also, MCC has failed to implement the free breakfast scheme for pourakarmikas despite three years having elapsed since an order was passed to that effect. Civic workers start their duty at 6am, and return home only after 3pm. This was the reason the government proposed the scheme to offer free breakfast, but it has not been executed. Until all our demands are fulfilled, we will continue our protest,” said Narayan.
Pointing out that the
agitation was not an impromptu act of defiance, Narayan sought to remind MCC officials that they had submitted a memorandum to both the district administration and the state government on September 19, listing their grievances and setting a two-week deadline to redress them. “But, neither the elected representatives nor the officials have come forward to address our woes. This is why we have decided to boycott duties related to the Dasara celebrations. There are more than 12 lakh pourakarmikas across India, and in Karnataka alone, there are over 35,000 civic workers,” he added.
Questioning Mysuru district in-charge minister GT Devegowda’s silence on the issue, Narayan said, “He has presided over four meetings related to Dasara, but he has not addressed the problem of pourakarmikas even once. This is something that has left us aggrieved.”
MCC health officer Dr Nagaraj said that deputy commissioner Abhiram G Sankar, and Devegowda, who went to Bengaluru on Wednesday to extend an official invitation to Kumaraswamy, had drawn the CM’s attention to the pressing problem. “Kumaraswamy has, in turn, assured them that the issue will be solved at the earliest.”
Pointing to the problems that might arise if the pourakarmikas refuse to return to work, he added, “Each day, the city generates around 430 tonnes of garbage. On Wednesday, we managed to dispose of the waste with the help of the permanent pourakarmikas. If the protest continues, we might face trouble in getting rid of the garbage.”
