Hyderabad: Protesting GHMC workers seek permanent jobs

Hyderabad: Members of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Employees' Union and more than 300 sanitation workers protested on Thursday outside the commissioner's office demanding removal of the bio-metric attendance system for the sanitation staff and make outsourcing contract staff permanent.

They demanded the GHMC commissioner to issue three pending DA that was supposed to be provided every six months but has yet not been given to the employees for more than one year. They submitted a memorandum to authorities. The workers burned Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's effigy alleging that his policies are against the welfare of GHMC workers.

They claimed that the biometric machines were faulty and caused incorrect recording of attendance, resulting in unfair cuts in salaries of sanitation staff.

They displayed placards criticising the CM and Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) Minister KT Rama Rao. They raised slogans against the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

The employees claimed that even after submitting several representations to the GHMC commissioner and the zonal commissioners, not even a single demand has been fulfilled.

Udhari Gopal, president of the union said, "around 800 workers have been fired without any notice and their salaries were not paid. The government has brought in a private civic infrastructure company, like Ramky, that has resulted in lay-off of hundreds of GHMC workers."

Gopal questioned if contracts are given to Ramky how contractors and workers of GHMC would survive? He said the outsourced GHMC employees were promised by the CM that they will be made permanent, but existing jobs are being taken away.