The Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLA, S.K. Mahendran, criticised the State Government for not allowing new recruitment for filling up vacant posts in the Madurai Corporation.
Addressing a demonstration in support of conservancy workers of the Corporation here on Tuesday, he said that appointment orders for over 1,000 sanitary workers on compassionate grounds had been issued by the Chennai Corporation in the last four years. But, no fresh recruitment had been made by the Madurai Corporation in the last 10 years.
Chennai Corporation was in the process of recruiting 1,600 sanitary workers through employment exchange, he said. When as many as 4,068 posts had been filled up in Chennai Corporation, why had it not been done so in Madurai, he said.
He assailed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Government for not recruiting employees even after lifting the ban on recruitment years back. Pointing out a 1980 Government Order which stipulated that employees of local bodies should be given all their retirement benefits on their day of retirement, he said the Corporation had been violating this order for four years.
Mr. Mahendran said that mass cleaning programme were not necessary at all if adequate number of sanitary workers were posted and the garbage cleaning was carried out on a daily basis. The MLA said that the Dalits could get a job without any competition from others only in the post of sanitary workers. By not filling up as many as 2,600 posts in Madurai, the Government has prevented economic uplift of as many Dalit families.
Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) district president V. Pitchai and CPI(M) councillor M. Ganesan were among those who were present.
