Marked absent by GPS system, sanitary workers go on strike

Nagpur: Around 554 sanitary workers from Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s Laxmi Nagar Zone went on a flash strike on Monday bringing road cleaning and other related works to a standstill in all areas of South-West Nagpur. The workers decided to strike work as over 40% of them were either marked absent or shown present only on a few days in the month of June by the GPS watch system.
Taking cognisance, mayor Nanda Jichkar directed the administration to release payment of the workers for June as per manual attendance system.
Laxmi Nagar Zone comprises several posh localities represented by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, mayor Jichkar, ruling party leader Sandip Joshi and others. Due to the strike, road cleaning and garbage collection work did not take place on the second consecutive day on Monday, Sunday being a holiday for the sanitary workers.
It all started after the NMC officials distributed salary slips for June to workers at around 6am on Monday. Realizing that many of them have been marked absent for entire month, the workers decided not to work and gathered in front of Laxmi Nagar Zone office. They raised slogans and demanded scrapping of the GPS watch system.
Later, the workers led by union leader Rajesh Hattibedh met Jichkar and Joshi at the NMC head office and apprised them of the discrepancies in the attendance. The office-bearers held a meeting with the NMC officials. Jichkar and Joshi directed the officials to release payment for June as per manual attendance. They also directed the officials to rectify flaws in the GPS watch system.
Introduced 15 months ago through Bengaluru-based ITI Limited, a central government undertaking, GPS watch system is aimed at monitoring sanitation works live. The civic body was supposed to release payments of 8,000 sanitary workers as per attendance registered in the system. The NMC is paying Rs207 per worker per month for 8,000 watches totalling to Rs16.56 lakh per month to ITI Limited.
For the time being, the old system of releasing salaries as per manual attendance was continued as it was planned to roll out the new system in a phased manner. Initially, the NMC decided to release salaries of sanitary workers of Laxmi Nagar and Gandhibagh zones as per the new system from June.
Hattibedh told TOI that attendance of a couple of health inspectors was also shown zero on the GPS watch system. “The new system has registered the attendance of a few health inspectors only for 15 days. Sanitary workers are doing their job properly and it is evident from 1,200 tonne garbage being removed from the city every day. How can the administration play with salaries of these poor people who risk their lives by doing the jobs,” he said.
TOI on June 26 had reported that majority of 40 officials related to sanitation works had stopped using GPS watches.
The workers alleged various flaws in the system. “The system does not give live location of workers which is important for monitoring the works. Location of many workers was shown out of the city limit and at times even in foreign countries. Battery of the watches exhausts soon,” they said.