Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation will require private sanitation agencies to issue employment or appointment letters to every safai karmachari working under their contracts, a move aimed at giving workers formal proof of employment and improving access to job-related benefits.
The decision followed a review of sanitation workers’ welfare measures by National Commission for Safai Karamcharis vice-chairman Kaishab Bihari during a meeting with BMC officials on Friday. BMC additional commissioner Kailash Chandra Dash said workers employed through private agencies currently did not receive formal employment letters, leaving them without documentary recognition of their jobs.
“We have asked the private sanitary agencies which have signed agreements with us for sanitation activities to provide employment letters to each worker as part of dignifying their role and ensuring recognition of their service,” Dash said, according to the report.
The directive comes as the civic body moves towards fully privatising sanitation services across Bhubaneswar. BMC has submitted a proposal to the state government to transfer sanitation work in the remaining three wards, which are currently serviced by municipal sanitation workers, to private management. If approved, specialised private agencies will operate sanitation services in all 67 wards.
Private agencies already work in 64 wards, while regular municipal sanitation workers continue to manage the remaining three. BMC had earlier directly handled sanitation services in 10 wards before transferring seven of them to private operators.
Seven private agencies currently carry out manual and mechanical sweeping, door-to-door waste collection and waste segregation across the city. Together, they employ nearly 7,000 sanitation workers, with about 1,000 workers deployed by each agency.
Dash said the privatisation of wards had produced positive results, with private agencies adopting what he described as a more professional approach to operations and worker supervision. Officials also said the proposed expansion would not displace existing municipal sanitation workers. Instead, those employees would be assigned other duties in ward offices.
The employment-letter requirement places documentation at the centre of the city’s sanitation contracting system. The civic body’s proposal to extend private management to the last three wards is awaiting approval from the state government.
