Image courtesy: Times of India
Stack of household garbage is reported to be piling up along the roadsides in several parts of Ahmedabad city. According to a new report a strike called by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) sanitation workers has entered its fifth day today. The association stated that around 15,000 regular sanitation workers of the AMC are on strike. The workers, who are demanding the right to secure compassionate jobs to their kin, will continue the sit-in protest outside the corporation’s north-west zone office on Monday till 6 pm. On Tuesday, the protestors will gather at the corporation’s headquarters in Danapith and submit a representation, stated the news report.
The IE report quoted Ahmedabad Municipal Servants’ Association secretary Kalpesh Makwana saying: “Until we are assured that our kin will get jobs, we are going to continue with the dharna and not resume work. Since we are tagged as safai kamdar, our children do not get any other job. This is the reason we are raising this demand for our children.” According to Makwana the AMC regularised 6,200 safai kamdars on April 4, 2018, but their kin are still being denied jobs on compassionate grounds. “The AMC is following two policies for safai kamdar. Except for these 6,200 regular sanitation workers, family members of all others are provided compassionate jobs,” he was quoted by IE, adding that as the workers’ dharna outside AMC’s Bodakdev zonal office continued garbage was seen dumped on the road in city’s Vastrapur area.
Sanitation workers often fall ill after prolonged exposure to all kinds of waste products. Hence many are unable to work beyond a point, or even succumb to various diseases, and thus a job on compassionate grounds for their kin becomes essential for the family.
Though not related directly to this group an example of the risks sanitation workers, especially those working as ‘manual scavengers’, can be read in a report released recently by the ‘Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan’[1], stated that Gujarat reported 62 deaths of manual scavengers, followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh reporting 29 deaths each. Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu followed this ignominious record, reporting 24 deaths each. These figures are in stark contradiction with the state-wise data released by National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), a statutory body set up by an Act of Parliament for the welfare of sanitation workers.
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