Hundreds of contractual sanitary staff observe strike for wages

Lokmat News Network

Aurangabad:

The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) administration today landed into trouble after more than 800 sanitary workers and staff working for the garbage lifting contractor Reddy Company stopped their work for want of their due wages, since morning. The civic authorities resolved the matter assuring to release of the pending bill and convinced them to resume garbage lifting from tomorrow.

It is learnt that AMC has not released the pending bill for November to the contractor. Hence the company did not pay the wages of its sanitary workers. Hence to get their wages, the contractor's staff under the leadership of Kamgar Ekta Sanghatna stopped collecting and lifting garbage since the early morning. Hence the ‘ghanta gadis’ were not seen visiting the colonies to collect the garbage door-to-door. The hue and cry started at 9 am. The civic officials and employees tried their level best to convince the agitators to restore the job, but it was in vain.

Later on, the deputy commissioner Somnath Jadhav invited the union for talks. It was then decided to release Rs 2.01 crore bill to the Reddy Company (of November). Out of which, the AMC will keep Rs 25 lakh as a reserve deposit with it.

The company assured of bringing 20 new ghanta gadis in January but brought only 14. Hence the amount of Rs 25 lakh has been kept as reserve money, said the deputy commissioner adding that the union office-bearers also accepted the decision.

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Jadhav added, “ The bill for December month is not ready. We were having a ready bill for November, therefore, we sent it for approval to the superiors. The bill will be released soon. The lifting of garbage will resume regularly from Wednesday.”

The manager Murli Reddy said, “The garbage-lifting project is running into losses. The outstanding bill is expected to receive in 2-3 days. However, it will become tough to deal with the day-to-day expenses if the AMC keeps Rs 25 lakh from the bill as reserve money. The cost of diesel, staff salary, maintenance and other work is unaffordable. The civic administration should think positively to sustain the project’s functioning.”