Municipal workers picket Balakrishna’s house

Outsourced municipal workers spreading waste in front of local MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna’s house in Hindupur in Anantapur district on Wednesday.

Will MLA-turned cine actor Nandamuri Balakrishna be real hero on ground for us in Hindupur, ask contract and outsourced municipal workers, who are agitating against a fresh threat to implement G.O. 279.

In all, 220 municipal sanitation workers picketed the house of the Hindupur MLA on the fifth day of their dharna at dawn bringing loads of solid waste and spreading it in front of the main entry gate.

Soon, police personnel stopped the municipal workers from spreading municipal waste on the road and took some of them into custody. An elderly woman turned unconscious in the melee between police and municipal workers, and she was shifted to a hospital in Bengaluru.

Centre for Indian Trade Union Hindupur secretary E.S. Venkatesh told

The Hindu that Municipal Commissioner Mallikarjun had agreed to implement the G.O. 279 after it was kept in abeyance following State-wide agitation last month.

This had put the jobs of the outsourced sanitation worker in danger, he said and pointed out that after the intervention of the police, when the Municipal Commissioner was contacted over phone, he promised to take a decision within three days.

“We will continue our agitation tomorrow by picketing the house and office of the Municipal Commissioner on Thursday and till he withdraws the effort to implement G.O. 279,” Mr. Venkatesh said.

If the new system under G.O. 279 is introduced, each sanitation worker has to carry a scanner and two of them have to visit 350 houses daily, he observed.