Noida urged to absorb district hospital cleaners

Noida: With garbage not being cleared outside the district hospital for days at a stretch, the district administration has approached the Noida Authority to engage the protesting sweepers and pay them wages on a par with those working for contractors at the Authority.
The protesters, who have been on a strike for the past fortnight, have been demanding that they be paid their old salary at the hospital that was slashed by 23% in August. However, with no written order, the sweepers have refused to end their strike on “mere verbal assurances”.

TOI had been reporting about the 42 housekeeping staff who have been protesting for the past 14 days against the 23% cut by the new contractor. The sweepers have been sitting outside the hospital after they were evicted from the hospital premises on December 2.

“The city magistrate has been assuring to get us absorbed under the Noida Authority’s contractors. He has said that eight of us will be absorbed by the Authority and the rest later. But, we need something on paper so that we can be sure of our status. The previous promises have failed and we need a written order,” Monu, one of the protesters, said.

City magistrate Shailendra Mishra told TOI that the Authority was willing to absorb eight of the staffers and the administration would try to absorb the rest of the sweepers in a “phased-manner”.