Indore sanitation workers have threatened to stop cleaning work across the city from Tuesday after protesting at the Indore Municipal Corporation office over demands for regularisation, pending benefits and resolution of long-standing service-related issues. The workers said the stoppage would continue if their demands were not addressed.
A large number of sanitation workers reached the civic body’s office at around 11.30am on Monday, sat on the ground and raised slogans. They demanded that the municipal commissioner meet them directly, according to a letter submitted to the commissioner warning of the proposed work stoppage.
The workers said they had submitted memoranda and applications to the municipal commissioner and mayor over several years, but that their issues had not received a satisfactory resolution. Their demands include regularisation of services and action on pay and allowances that they say remain pending.
The protest follows directions issued by Indore mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava on August 24 concerning demands raised by sanitation and other municipal employees. The mayor had directed that a letter be sent to the state government recommending relaxation of rules so that regularised sanitation and other workers who had missed out on pay and allowances equivalent to those of Class IV employees because of educational qualification requirements could receive the same pay scale.
The directions cited orders of the Supreme Court and the high court. They also called for a communication to the state government seeking regularisation of daily-wage workers, sanitation workers and other employees appointed by the corporation after May 16, 2007.
The mayor had further instructed the civic administration to take immediate action under the applicable rules on compassionate appointments for families of corporation employees or Safai Mitras who had died. He also directed that leave-encashment cases involving corporation and sanitation employees be settled within a fixed time frame.
Another direction was for all corporation employees to receive monthly salary slips. The measures place responsibility on the municipal administration to process service, pay and welfare-related cases while some proposed changes, including relaxation of rules and regularisation of certain categories of workers, require state government action.
The threatened stoppage could affect routine municipal cleaning operations across Indore if the dispute remains unresolved. The source report did not state whether the corporation had accepted the workers’ demands, whether negotiations had begun, or how services would be maintained if the proposed strike started. The next immediate development will be the municipal administration’s response to the workers’ warning and the implementation of the mayor’s earlier directions.
