With the sanitary workers joining the 4-day strike called by CITU, heaps of garbage got piled up across the city on Monday.
The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC), despite all its contingency plans, could not clear all the garbage generated in the city on Monday. Piles of garbage were left uncollected alongside the roads in many parts of the city, which generates nearly 500 tonnes of garbage daily. Of this, more than 300 tonnes is generated from households, which comes straight to the dumper bins placed at vantage points in the city. Nearly 200 tonnes of garbage was left uncollected.
The corporation cleared the dumper bins on main roads and important junctions, while the garbage on connecting roads, arterial roads and internal roads could not be cleared. It could move 13 dumper placers, including 8 in the morning and 5 in the evening, for transporting garbage to dumping yards.
More dumper-placers
The officials planned to run 10 more dumper-placers in the night.
When contacted, in charge Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) P. Ratnavali said that the Corporation made alternate arrangements to ensure that the people would not face hardships. There are about 800 permanent sanitary workers in the city. They were distributed in all the three circles, she said.
The contract workers, DWCUA, and CMEY group members participated in the strike irrespective of affiliations to trade unions. About 2,100 sanitary workers as against a total of 2,700 participated in the strike. They assembled in good numbers in front of the VMC main office and staged a protest.
Addressing the gathering, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) city secretary Ch. Babu Rao said that the State government has no concern for the workers who toil day and night to keep the city spick and span. The minimum wages was not revised during last three years though the cost of living has increased many folds. The State was requested to increase the minimum wages to Rs. 12,500 to workers in municipalities and corporations. The services of contract employees and NMRs should be regularised, and pay ex gratia of Rs.5 lakh to the employees who died in office. The workers should be given DA, ESI and PF dues as demanded by the workers, he said.
