Temporary sanitary workers of the Corporation staged a dharna on the Corporation premises on Monday pressing their demands including payment of salary on the first day of every month and marking of attendance through mobile app.
The protesters said 978 sanitary workers of Tirunelveli Corporation, including 740 members of self-help groups and 238 sanitary workers, deployed by the contractor for the past several years would sign in the records and record their attendance in the biometric system, both kept in the zonal office of the urban civic body.
After introducing the mobile app for recording the attendance for the sanitary workers, the Corporation mandated them to mark their attendance through the new system from Tuesday (September 27). Moreover, the drivers of the battery-operated garbage collection vehicles, lorries and the sanitary workers in-charge of garbage collection pushcarts had been told to park their vehicles in respective wards itself instead of bringing it to the zonal office after the end of work everyday.
“Even as these vehicles are being parked in the zonal offices, batteries are stolen often and the drivers of the vehicles are being compelled to buy the batteries from their salary and fit it. If these vehicles are parked in the wards, the miscreants may steal even the vehicles itself or damage it badly. Hence, the Corporation administration, while allowing the sanitary workers to record their attendance by visiting the zonal office, should allow them to park the garbage collection vehicles on the zonal office premises as being done now,” said R. Mohan, president of Tirunelveli District Rural Development and Local Administration Workers’ Association.
He also said the wages of the sanitary workers should be disbursed on the first day of every month instead of dragging it up to the tenth day, he said.
When Mr. Mohan and others held talks with Corporation Commissioner V. Sivakrishnamurthy, Mayor P.M. Saravanan and other senior officials, the protesters agreed to follow the mobile app attendance system for a week and that they would continue the system if it was user-friendly. As the officials told the drivers of garbage collection vehicles that they could park and charge safely their vehicles in the Corporation parks or the water tanks in the wards, they agreed to it.
The officials also agreed to get the benefits to the families of 24 sanitary workers who died over the past couple of years.
