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Sanitary workers protest against privatisation move

BERHAMPUR: Sanitary workers of the city marched to the house of the Union Minister of State for Rural Development Chadrasekhar Sahu at Gosani Nuagaon area on Sunday morning protesting against the proposal of the municipality to privatise the cleaning of the city.

They asked the Union Minister to intervene and persuade the municipality to make more appointment of sanitary workers for better sanitary conditions in the city.

According to the secretary of the Berhampur Municipality Scavenger and Karmachari Sangha (BMSKS), Debendra Ghadei, Mr. Sahu has promised to convene a meeting of the municipality and administrative authorities to discuss the demands of sanitary workers.

Leader of the Union Anil Kumar Nayak said the union held discussions with former Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC) of southern division C.T.M. Suguna regarding the matter.

Ms. Suguna had proposed privatisation of sanitary work in the city during her tenure as the RDC. It may be noted that cleaning of four markets of the city are already in private hands. They had informed Ms. Suguna that the municipality limits are not getting cleaned properly as there is a need of another 1,000 sanitary workers. They also alleged that sanitary workers were exploited through the privatisation process when the cleaning work was done through labour contractors. They proposed that the municipality could appoint more sanitary workers on daily wages.

Recently representatives of the union also met new RDC Satyabrata Sahu as they received information that the municipality was again planning to privatise cleaning of city extensively.

According to Mr. Ghadei there is no obstacle in the path of making new appointment of sanitary workers by the municipality as the State government has lifted ban on new appointments from October 10. The union is also ready to accept appointment of new sanitary workers on daily wages directly by the municipality. But they are not ready to allow any attempt to privatise the cleaning.

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