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Pourakarmikas withdraw stir after Karnataka government promises tenure
“For the last four days, all our pourakarmikas, especially women, have braved the rains and heat and have undertaken this protest, which ended today. For several years, it was a dream to get permanency as everyone knew the problems there were in the contract system,” Nirmala, the president of the Pourakarmikas Sangha, said.
Civic workers (pourakarmikas) on Monday called off their strike in Bengaluru after four days, following assurances by the Karnataka government to look into their demands.
On Monday, the Basavaraj Bommai-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) issued an order directing a newly formed committee to prepare a report to convert pourakarmikas jobs from contract to tenure basis.
The government formed a 14-member committee on July 1, led by the minister for municipal administration, N Nagaraju (MTB), and the minister for urban development BA Basavaraju.
The Bommai administration has given the committee three months to submit the report and initiate the process to convert the terms of employment, according to people aware of the developments.
“For the last four days, all our pourakarmikas, especially women, have braved the rains and heat and have undertaken this protest, which ended today. For several years, it was a dream to get permanency as everyone knew the problems there were in the contract system,” Nirmala, the president of the Pourakarmikas Sangha, said.
The civic workers are the backbone of every city corporation in Karnataka, especially Bengaluru, which houses over 12 million of the estimated 70 population of the state.
“We have been doing this work for the past 20 years but are still not being made permanent. The salaries they pay are not enough for house rent, to pay our children’s school fees or to survive. We will continue our strike till our jobs are made permanent,” said one pourakarmika, who did not share her name.
While Bengaluru, India’s technology hub, has been spending crores on the mechanisation of sweepers and other equipment to keep the streets clean, it is the large army of Pourakarmikas who do the bulk of the work and are seen sweeping and collecting garbage from streets and other places manually.
Bengaluru generates around 5,000 tonnes of waste every day, and only a tiny portion of this goes to recycling, according to experts. The waste collection, in large localities, is done with a small auto, which transfers it to bigger trucks, which then make their way into segregation units or sometimes, landfills.
The strike comes when Karnataka, particularly Bengaluru, has seen a sharp uptick in Covid-19 infections, adding even more significance to civic workers who keep the city clean.
The garbage crisis, where waste was not collected for days in Bengaluru in 2012, had made global headlines, denting the city’s reputation as a global IT hub.
The pourakarmikas, waste collectors and the entire manual labour ecosystem to keep Bengaluru clean have commenced their strike at Bengaluru’s freedom park, demanding dignified working conditions, including the provision of safety equipment, post-retirement benefits, and permanency of jobs, along with other welfare measures.
The protest was organised by the Powrakarmikara Sanghatanegala Janti Horata Samiti, of which BBMP Powrakarmikara Sangha is a co-organiser.
“In 1990 they brought in a Contract system In which pourakarmikas were forced to work as slaves to these contractors. But after several years of fighting, in 2016-17, the Siddaramaiah-led government brought sweepers under direct payment. But loaders, drivers, cleaners, and UGD were still under contract. We want this entire contract system abolished and the employment is permanent,” Clifton Rozario, an activist who was part of the protest, said.
