Give sanitation workers a better deal, national commission tells BMC

The National Commission for Safai Karmacharis (NCSK) met with the BMC commissioner to discuss issues such as health insurance, housing, and promotions for sanitation workers. The BMC claimed to have addressed the concerns raised by the commission. The NCSK had rebuked the BMC for not providing health insurance and called for the reinstatement of proper coverage. The issue of promoting sanitation workers who are eligible for other jobs was also discussed. The BMC stated that it had started the process of hiring for 1,100 posts and that eligible sanitation staff would be given preference.

Mumbai: Vital issues related to the BMC’s sanitation workers were discussed at a meeting between the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis (NCSK) and BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Saturday. A day earlier, the commission’s chairman M Venkatesan and member Dr P P Vava had visited the BMC headquarters and pulled up the civic body on a host of issues, including health insurance, deaths of sewer-cleaning workers, permanent housing for sanitation workers and promotion of existing employees.

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The commission is a non-statutory body of the ministry of social justice and empowerment, whose chairperson and members routinely tour the country to study the socio-economic and living conditions of safai karmacharis and their dependents. The grievances of the safai karmacharis are then taken up by the commission with the concerned civic and police authorities.

Following the two-hour-long meeting on Saturday, Chahal claimed that he had answered all the issues raised by the commission to their satisfaction. In response to its demand to provide permanent housing to the staff, the municipal commissioner said that the BMC had a pool of houses that were provided to workers, and as per the Lad-Page Committee recommendations, the houses were transferred to their kin once they joined the service following the existing employees’ retirement. Chahal said that a housing pool was more important than permanent housing, which is why the BMC had brought in the Ashray Yojana.

The NCSK on Friday had rebuked the BMC for not providing health insurance to sanitation workers. “Previously, the civic body used to insure workers, but some 10 or 12 years ago, they stopped this and instead started giving them a lump sum as insurance money, which is not enough,” Venkatesan told HT in an interview a few hours prior to the meeting with Chahal. “We have directed the BMC to bring back proper health insurance.” However, Chahal, in the meeting, explained that the BMC had taken the decision to give workers a straight-up fee following demands from 10 to 15 unions which were not happy with tenders being given to insurance companies.

The important issue of promotion of sanitation workers was also discussed. “There are many who continue with their education while doing sanitation work and are thus eligible for promotions and jobs in other departments,” Vava told HT. “However, this is not being done.” To this, Chahal responded that there had been no recruitments by the BMC in the last three years, but it had now started the process of hiring for 1,100 posts. “The sanitation staff eligible for promotion will be given preference in these,” he told the commission.

Venkatesan also mentioned issues like providing ID cards to contractual employees, making them part of the Employee Provident Fund scheme and other benefits. He also emphasised that the civic body should look at making the existing contractual employees permanent instead of hiring more of them. To this Chahal said, “There are more than 35,000 contractual employees in the BMC. We cannot sell out the BMC just to make everyone a permanent employee.”