Mohali in a mess as strike by sanitation staff enters Day 3

Mohali, August 24

The sanitation staff of the Mohali Municipal Corporation continued their protest on Day 3 of their indefinite strike, leading to garbage piling up at several places across Mohali.

The sanitation staff would continue to strike and there would be no garbage removal from the roads, sewage lines or any door-to-door garbage collection till our demands were met, said a union member.

The workers staged a protest at the MC office. They also raised slogans and burnt effigies of the mayor and commissioner on Friday.

The protesters alleged that their demands were not included in the agenda item for the House meeting of the MC on August 22. The workers claimed that the mayor and commissioner had promised them, in writing in April that their demands to increase staff and salary would be discussed in the next House meeting.

“We are being forced to operate bush cutters, pick malba, horticulture pruning waste on a daily basis now. Our salaries have not been hiked, no new recruitment has taken place,” said a Punjab Sanitation Staff Federation union member today. The protesters said their demand regarding rejig of sanitation staff at public toilets and collection van drivers was also ignored by Mohali Mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu and Mohali Municipal Corporation Commissioner Navjot Kaur.