Gurugram: Striking sanitation workers oppose MCG’s cleaning drive, 20 detained

Gurugram: Around 20 sanitation workers, who have been on a strike for around a week, were allegedly detained for a few hours on Diwali after a spat between them and MCG officials.
An official of the workers’ association said the incident took place near the Sabzi Mandi Monday morning. MCG officials and Gurugram police came to the spot and started their own cleaning drive, prompting an argument and the detention, the association said on Tuesday. “All the safai karamcharis were protesting peacefully when MCG joint commissioner Naresh Kumar, his team and a police team reached the spot… We requested the workers to stop cleaning the area as this is our work and we are protesting for our rights. A verbal spat ensued and the police detained us. The police took us to different police stations and made us sit for more than three to four hours,” said Ram Singh, president of Nagar Palika Karamchari Sangh.
Singh said he was among the 20 workers detained.
The sanitation staff has been on a strike for a week, demanding that the workers be hired on a permanent basis, instead of contractual employment, and be entitled to the old pension scheme. “We also want to see our city neat and clean. We assure people of the city of clean roads in just seven hours, but the government is not paying any attention to our demands. Despite our repeated pleas, the government has turned a deaf ear, leaving us no choice but to protest,” Singh said. MCG joint commissioner (Swachh Bharat Mission) Naresh Kumar told TOI that the corporation had tried to “pacify” the situation.
“We held a meeting with the union representatives on Sunday. We conveyed them that waste is piling up and the residents are complaining. When we went to remove the waste from markets on Monday, some sanitation workers disrupted our work and did not let us remove it. Eventually, police took action against the sanitation workers,” Kumar said. Assistant commissioner of police Rajender Singh confirmed that some workers had been detained “to maintain law and order”, and later released.