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Chandigarh MC placates garbage collectors, work to resume after one-day strike
Officials of the Chandigarh MC assured the garbage collectors that all the pending terms and conditions of the MoU would be met within a month’s time
Following a day-long strike over the municipal corporation’s (MC) alleged failure to honour the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with them about two years ago, the city’s door-to-door garbage collectors on Monday evening decided to return to work from Tuesday after meeting the MC officials.
MC officials assured the garbage collectors that all the pending terms and conditions of the MoU would be met within a month’s time.
City residents, meanwhile, were left a harried lot on Monday with the garbage collectors not turning up at their houses. The workers instead parked the MC’s garbage-lifting vehicles in their allotted sectors, but did not go visit any houses to collect garbage.
Speaking about the problems faced by the public, Federation Of Sector Welfare Associations’ spokesperson Pankaj Gupta, “While the strike was only for today, garbage for three days is now lying-in people’s houses. Saturday’s garbage was not collected on Sunday, as collectors do not come on Sunday.”
“The waste was not collected on Monday, and today’s waste is also now in people’s houses. The MC knew about the strike and could have arranged for an alternative mechanism to collect garbage,” he added.
City Forum of Residents Welfare Organisations convener Vinod Vashisht echoed the sentiment, saying, “People can somehow manage with a day’s strike but if its extends then it would create major problems. In the last garbage collectors’ strike, the city streets were filled with garbage. We hope this is not repeated.”
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Detailing their issues, Chandigarh door-to-door Garbage Collectors’ Society president Om Prakash Saini said, “The annual increase in payments to collectors promised in MoU has not been met. In death cases, ₹2 lakh compensation is not being given to the deceased’s families. Residential societies are still separately running the waste collection system. Besides, our salaries are given late.”
Notably, around 890 garbage collectors had signed MoU with the civic body, when it took over the door-to-door garbage collection.
“In total there are more than 2,000 people involved in the collection, and all of them went on strike. We decided not to stage any demonstration or protest, but adopted this method to send a message to the MC to not stall our demands,” Saini said.
