Waste collection hit as JMC garage workers strike work

Jaipur: Garage workers at the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) have been on strike for the past one week over their demands of making their position permanent and stop future contractual hirings in the municipal corporation.
Due to the strike, waste collection, monsoon preparedness work and sewage cleaning are severely affected. These are contractual workers who do the job of drivers and cleaners for the JMC.
“The chief minister in the budget had announced that contractual workers will not be hired, but this is still happening, and it is not being stopped. We are demanding that hiring of contractual workers must be stopped and those hired previously should be made permanent,” said Mahesh Yadav, president of Vehicle Drivers Contractual Workers Union.
Yadav said that in JMC-Greater and JMC-Heritage, new hirings of vehicle drivers and garage workers are being done on contractual basis, for which notifications have also been issued.
“The corporations are not following the budget announcement of the chief minister and continue to hire contractual workers. Protesting this, we have been on strike since June 6 and will continue to remain on strike till the orders are reversed,” added Yadav.
After door-to-door waste collection is done and the garbage collected is dumped at a dumpsite, from there these workers collect the garbage and take it outside the city to the landfill. Due to the strike, waste is not being collected from open depots. Anti-encroachment drives for temporary encroachments are also hampered, while sewage lines cleaning work has also been impacted in the city. Both the civic bodies in the city have set a deadline of till the end of this month to get sewer lines cleared for the monsoon season to prevent waterlogging in the city.
Last week, protesting garage workers from JMC-Greater also met BJP MP Kirori Lal Meena at his residence and submitted a list of demands to him.
Officials from JMC did not respond to calls seeking a comment.