Deadlock continues as union firm on stand

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 22

The second round of talks between the Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) and the Sanitation Workers’ Union today failed to reach any conclusion.

Sanitation workers today begun their indefinite strike and staged a protest outside the MCB office. During the protest, they also raised slogans against the civic body.

To pacify the agitated workers, MCB officials convened a meeting with representatives of the union to resolve the issue. But the representatives, including its Gora Lal, were not convinced with the officials.

Officials said they had received 4,700 applications and the selection would be done on merit.

The union demands that that the recruitment be held at the official level. Gora Lal said the selection panel was not acceptable to them.

Seeing the mood of the workers, selection committee members, including Jasvir Jassa, Anjana Rani and Raju Sra, unanimously decided to forward the matter to a legal advisor for legal opinion so that the criteria for merit can be finalised.

The union president alleged that the Mayor and Senior Deputy Mayor are deliberately trying to create tension between sanitation workers over the recruitment issue without any reason.

Gora Lal said those associated with the SAD and BJP are playing tricks with him as he was a congress supporter. He said the strike and protest would be intensified from tomorrow.

He also announced that tomorrow they would throw the garbage outside the MCB gate. The workers also decided to burn the effigies of the Mayor and Senior Deputy Mayor.

The protesters has already brought a trolley filled with the garage and stationed it outside the MCB office. They have also placed the effigies outside the MCB office.

An 18-member selection committee has already been constituted, in which Gora Lal and Om Parkash, representatives of sanitation workers, has also been included.

The Mayor, along with the Senior Deputy Mayor, had sent the name of 13 councillors for the committee to MCB Commissioner Sanyam Aggarwal.

He included chief sanitary inspector Ranbir Rana, Harbans Lal, Lakhbir Trikha, Gora Lal and Om Parkash in the committee.

The city has around 65,000 households and 15,000 commercial units and around three lakh people may be affected due to the strike.

With monsoon on mind, the piled-up garbage on roads poses a threat to residents owing to disease outbrek possibility. Due to this, the MCB officials are holding meetings to resolve the issue, but till date, the issue has not been resolved.

The Sanitation Workers’ Union and the SAD-BJP councillors have been at loggerheads over the recruitment of new sanitation workers.

The MCB is going to recruit 328 sanitation workers on daily wages.

The union said it would recruit the workers on its own, while councillors have presented a new formula and demanded that five workers recommended by each councillor should be recruited.

MCB Commissioner Sanyam Aggarwal said, “People are getting affected by the deadlock but the issue is between the House and sanitation workers over the recruitment process. We are trying to find an amicable solution to the problem but both (union and MC) are adamant on their demands. I am hopeful that the issue will be sorted out by them in a day or so.”