The garbage collectors stated they won’t lift any garbage if their demands are not met. (Representational)Garbage was strewn across various sectors, including the Sector 17 plaza as safai karamcharis and waste collectors continued their protest on Sunday for the third consecutive day. The garbage collectors stated they won’t lift any garbage if their demands are not met.
Krishan Chadha, President of the Safai karamcharis union added that the protest will continue till officials don’t pay heed to their demands. “The Municipal Commissioner will be meeting us tomorrow at 11 am and if our demands are not met, we will continue our protest. No waste will be collected from any house till then,” he said. “Regarding our demands of removing GPS watches, we have been told that it will be brought as an agenda in the House, because we won’t wear them at all,” Chadha added.
The Sector 17 plaza, the heart of City Beautiful, wore the worst look with garbage strewn all around. With the festive season going on, more waste is being generated on a daily basis. As this waste lies around in heaps, people have expressed concern about it leading to increased breeding of mosquitoes.
The safai karamcharis have been protesting against the order of wearing GPS watches, while garbage collectors are on protest against the MC’s order of running its own garbage vehicles. Their other demands include regularisation of contractual employees.
In February too this year, the sanitation workers had stated that the wearing the GPS watched gave them a sensation of “whirling” and feel giddy.
These watches track the movement of workers. They use a software where each and every official will have their account, and information about their movement will displayed. The designated place of work in zones for each worker has been logged into the software. If the employee deviates from their designated place of work, it will reflect in their account and accordingly, salary will be deducted for remaining ‘missing’ for that duration.
After getting to know that their salary will be generated on basis of the watches, staffers had said “their workers can even die” after wearing these watches. Terming it an attempt to make them “bonded labour”, they had added that the watches affect their privacy.
There were also complaints swollen wrists, feelings of nausea and giddiness. TheMC has obtained 4,000 watches on rent of Rs 18.68 lakh per month. An amount of Rs 2.24 crore will be incurred per year.