Civic officials told to act against protesting workers in Gurugram

The directions came from the MCG joint commissioner Naresh Kumar who said that the strike has inconvenienced residents

The officials of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) have been told to take action against sanitation workers that have been on strike for over the last one week.

Sanitation workers in Gurugram have been on strike for over the last one week. (Parveen Kumar/ht)

The directions came from MCG joint commissioner Naresh Kumar who said that multiple complaints were received from residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) in areas where on-roll sanitation staff of MCG deployed for waste collection have gone on strike since September 20 causing problems for residents.

On Monday, Kumar held a meeting with officials of the civic body and directed them to take “necessary action” so that no further complaints are received in the future.

“Orders have been given to the officials deployed in the field to take action against such sanitation staff who are found absent from work without any intimation and don’t complete their duty hours. Their salary will be deducted as per the ratio of hours or days they will remain absent from work,” he said.

Kumar said that at least 3,200 sanitation workers are working directly on the MCG payroll and complaints were received of many remaining absent from duty.

Officials said that the joint commissioner was particularly irked after several RWAs had suggested that contractual sanitation staff be deployed for waste collection instead of the on-roll staff. The RWAs had claimed that the on-toll staff were not working in a prompt fashion.

The order comes at a time when sanitation workers of the civic body have been protesting over various issues, more recently outsourcing of sanitation work to private agencies. The strike has disrupted waste collection and disposal across various parts of the city for over a week. While the door-to-door garbage collection is done by a concessionaire, general sanitation and lifting of waste are the responsibility of MCG.

Meanwhile, workers’ unions have slammed the joint commissioner’s orders.

“The workers are already suffering, and with the new orders they will be hit financially too. They have all the right to protest and raise the issues,” said Ram Singh, president of Nagar Nigam Safai Karamchari Sangh, a sanitation workers’ union.

On the other hand, residents said the strike has resulted in waste being dumped in the open and creating a mess in their localities.”The sanitation workers never reported on time nor did they ever clear the streets. Several mosquito breeding grounds have come up in our sector due to the poor state of sanitation,” said Rajkumar Yadav, president of the Sector 46 RWA. He also lauded the MCG joint commissioner’s orders saying that it was in favour of residents.