BJP slams State Govt for municipal workers’ strike

Hyderabad, Oct 22 : The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday slammed the State Government for its failure to prevent strike by municipal employees.

In a letter to Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, BJP National Vice-President Bandaru Dattatreyya said that the strike by civic workers in Andhra Pradesh has turned all the cities and towns into heaps of garbage with stinking smell. “The City of Hyderabad, known for being clean and green, is now full with ugly surroundings and all pervading foul smell,” he said.

Dattatreyya said that almost all trade unions including the contract workers have given a strike call pressing for their long pending demands. Apart from GHMC, contract workers including sanitation and garbage vehicle drivers are demanding minimum pay of Rs 12,500 per month and DA on par with the other employees. The other demands include a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the families in the event of workers’ death on duty and new garbage picking vehicles in place of condemned ones.

The BJP leader alleged the although the unions served the strike notice about 20 days ago, the authorities did not take any measures to resolve the issues and settle the genuine demands of the workers. No attempt was made to clear the apprehensions of the workers. Over 70,000 contract workers and outsources employees in 167 municipalities and 19 municipal corporations in the State are agitating for their just and genuine demands, he said.

Dattatreyya said that if two days of strike by civic workers has resulted in such a big mess, one could image the gravity of the situation if the strike were to continue for few more days.

“Since a political decision is needed in this issue, negotiations should be held at the level of the Chief Minister,” he demanded. “The government should not behave like a private employer, but should behave like an ideal employer and abolish contract labour in all the municipalities and corporations by regularising all the contract labours,” he said. INN