Safai karamcharis continue stir on Day 2

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 20

For the second consecutive day, the safai karamcharis did not lift garbage from the city today. As there was no lifting of garbage, the garbage processing plant has not received any garbage since yesterday for processing. Around 500 tonnes of garbage has piled up in the city.

RD Sharma, in-charge of the garbage processing plant, said on an average they receive 250 tonnes of garbage for processing daily, but from two days - January 19 and 20 - they have not received even a single truck of garbage for processing.

The safai karamcharis also not cleaned city roads today and continued their protest outside the Medical Officer Health (MOH) garage in the Industrial Area, Phase I. The protesters did not let any garbage-lifting vehicle to move out and lift garbage from the city.

Union president Shyam Lal Ghawri said MC officials were not accepting their key demand of employment of family members of the deceased workers on compassionate grounds. They held number of meetings with MC officials, but till date they were not ready to accept their demands.

There are 4,000 safai karamcharis (regular and contractual) who have stopped cleaning the city roads and lifting the garbage during the strike.

Key demands of the union are filling of vacant 650 posts, regularisation of daily wagers, employment of family members of the deceased workers on compassionate grounds and promotion of literate sanitation workers to the post of clerks.

Meanwhile, MC Joint Commissioner Manoj Khatri could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.