Strike and stalemate throw up garbage avenues in Gurugram

GURUGRAM: Garbage continued to pile up at many places of the city, as the strike by sanitation workers entered its ninth day on Thursday.
In morning, workers of MCG’s waste concessionaire Ecogreen were stopped from lifting garbage from a secondary collection point in Basai. Ecogreen workers said they had lifted two trucks of garbage but “there are still seven to eight trucks lying at the site”.
Another protest erupted at the Dundahera secondary waste collection point around 8am when a group of sanitation workers stopped Ecogreen employees from removing the garbage. However, MCG officials and police rushed to the spot and work resumed.
The primary demands of the workers is regularisation of their jobs and end of the contractual system of outsourcing sanitation staff.
The workers, who began the strike on October 19, are also demanding that the sanitation manpower engaged with the concessionaire for door-to-door waste collection should also be directly employed by MCG. “Our staff and vehicles were stopped from lifting garbage at various locations across the city. We are taking help from the police and the MCG commissioner has also directed the SHOs to assist us whenever a requirement arises,” said Suvendu Samantaray, Ecogreen’s general manager (operations).
“We’v also got directions from MCG to remove garbage from main roads and public places since sanitation workers are on strike,” he added.
MCG has a strength of nearly 6,500 sanitation workers outsourced through different manpower agencies and around 250 of them are regular employees of the civic body. The contractual workers get paid through these agencies since the civic body pays monthly salaries to the private manpower firms.
The protesting workers on Thursday alleged that they don’t get salaries on time and are not entitled to statutory benefits like employees’ provident fund and health insurance. They also alleged that they don’t get proper uniform and other equipment, which MCG provides to these agencies.
Naresh Malkat, state secretary, Nagar Palika Karmachari Sangh, Haryana, said, “The state government has, so far, not initiated any dialogue with us. If our demands are not met till Saturday, we will extend our strike indefinitely.”
MCG officials said they are asking the contractual workers to resume work, “otherwise their salaries will be deducted”. “The concessionaire and the contractors are providing workers to lift garbage strewn across the city.” Residents of several sectors complained of unpicked garbage.
“Since our sector is surrounded by local colonies, people are throwing waste in the open spaces, and the green belts have turned into a dumping ground. The door-to-door waste collection has also become irregular for the last four days, adding to the sufferings of residents,” said Dinesh Vashisht, RWA president of sectors 3, 5 and 6.
Narayan Agrawal, general secretary of Sector 17C RWA, said: “We don’t know how long the strike will continue, the government needs to act fast before it gets any worse.”