BJP, Congress back MC contract workers’ strike

The Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have come out in support of the Municipal Corporation (MC) workers on strike against the contract and outsourcing policy of the state government.

The state vice president of BJP, Subhash Sharma, today went to the dharna of MC employees in Nangal and expressed solidarity with employees on strike. Sharma said the party would fight the case of contract workers in the state politically and legally.

Notably, several civic body employees have been working on contract for the last 25 years. Instead of regularising their services, they say, the Punjab government was planning to render them jobless by giving the contract of managing services of MCs in the state to private players.

“I shall plead the case of MC employees across the state with the Governor and the CM Punjab. In case their grievance was not redressed the BJP shall fight the case of contract MC employees in the Punjab and Haryana High court,” he said.

Earlier, Congress councillors from Nangal MC led by the president, Sanjay Sahni, joined the dharna of employees and expressed solidarity with them.

Sahni said the contract employees have been working dedicatedly for past many years, adding that the party would stand with the employees in case the Punjab government tried to remove them from service.

The contract and outsource employees in the state have been on a strike since the past few days. The employees had the apprehension that the government was going to end their services by giving contract of maintaining various services across all MCs of the state to a big company.

Presently, small local contractors were managing various services like door to door collection of garbage in various MC’s in the state. The contract and outsourced employees are also demanding regularisation of their services.

The strike of MC contract and outsourced employees has severely affected the sanitation in various towns of Ropar. Since the garbage has not been collected from households the people are facing problems. The garbage was also flowing out from the street dustbins in various cities create problems for citizens.

The sources here said that the government has initiated dialogue with the striking employees in an effort to end the strike of MC workers.