If you are planning to visit a Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) office on Wednesday, your work may not get done. As many as 11,000 engineers, officials and pourakarmikas of the corporation have decided to go on an indefinite strike against the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) from Wednesday.
This means that no official work like khata transfer or plan approval will be done at any of the zonal offices or the headquarters of the palike, and no pourakarmika will collect garbage or clean the streets of the city. However, BBMP-run hospitals, schools and colleges have been spared.
According to R. Subramaniam, president of the BBMP Officers and Employees Association, private and civil contractors have also pledged their support to the strike.
Demand
“Government officials are being treated like criminals by the BMTF. After the last council meeting when our complaints against the task force were discussed, over 130 FIRs were filed in five days. All we seek is protection for the employees,” he said, explaining the reason behind the strike.
“Our main demand is for the Government Order of 1996 (declaring BMTF as a police station) to be rectified and the criminal cases booked against BBMP engineers and officers to be taken back,” Mr. Subramaniam said.
Ex-Mayors meet
The former Mayors of the city held a press conference here on Tuesday. Criticising the functioning of the task force, M. Ramachandrappa said, “Corruption began in the BBMP after the BMTF was set up.”
He also alleged that members of the task force were “harassing” owners of buildings.
“No records are available of the BMTF from 1997. When we filed an RTI [Right to Information application], we were told that the records were destroyed in the fire that broke out in the office last year. There are no records online either. There seems to be collusion between the State government, BMTF and BBMP,” alleged the former Mayor P.R. Ramesh, referring to the massive fire that broke out in the BMTF office, in which records of the multi-crore fake bills scam were lost.
