Charanjit Singh Teja
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, April 20
Due to the non-payment of their salaries for the past two months, employees of a solid waste management company have announced suspension of their work from Sunday. On Friday, they had suspended the work at Chheharta and Bhagtanwala. Now, they have announced to stop collecting garbage in the entire city.
“We are getting salaries with a delay of months. Company officials tell us that the MC hasn’t paying them, so we will stop working from Sunday.
This time we will resume the work only after getting assurance of timely salary disbursement,” said a garbage collection worker in Ranjit Avenue.
Earlier, the employees had suspended the garbage collection for four days in first week of April. The MC had released Rs 62 lakh on April 9.
Meanwhile, officials of the firm, responsible for sanitation, said they were trying to pacify the employees so that the work may not be stopped.
They said they were negotiating with civic body officials to release the pending amount so that the workers may be paid.
Manoj Kumar, in charge of the solid waste management company, said, “We are trying to pacify the employees. Hopefully, they will continue collecting garbage tomorrow. I have asked them to wait till Monday. Hopefully, MC releases funds on Monday.”
Upset over the suspension of work every week, Mayor Karmajit Singh Rintu said, “We are not satisfied with the functioning of the company. We have released Rs 12 crore in the last three months. The company is not processing the garbage at Bhagtanwala dump. They have to manage the things. The MC will not let the garbage collection work affected.”
The firm claimed that Rs 9.5 crore has been pending toward the MC. Now, they urgently need five crore.