Sanitation workers call off strike in Delhi

New Delhi: After nearly a month-long stir, sanitation workers of the cash-strapped EDMC on Tuesday ended their strike after the civic authority agreed to accept their demands, a union leader claimed.

The workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) had launched the strike on September 12 demanding regular payment of salaries and regularisation of workers.

"We called off our strike today, as the Mayor gave us assurance that contractual workers would be regularised in a phased manner," president of MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union Sanjay Gahlot said.

The union also decided to call off the strike keeping public interest in mind as heaps of garbage, dumped at public places, were posing a health risk, he added.

We had separate meetings with the East Delhi Mayor and the commissioner on Tuesday and they both gave assurances about regularisation of contractual workers employed after March 1998. Our other demands are also being looked into," he said.

Incidentally, the decision to end the stir comes days after the EDMC vowed to take strict action against the agitating workers.

On Monday, the civic body had terminated the services of 26 contractual sanitation workers and suspended 17 others, with immediate effect for allegedly "creating obstruction" in work.

However, Gahlot claimed that the suspension will be revoked. "The Mayor also gave us verbal assurance that these workers would also be restored," Gahlot claimed.

The EDMC on Friday had issued a circular directing all the sanitation workers to resume work from October 6.

As decided earlier, the authorities had also regularised services of six sanitation workers engaged on or after April 1, 1998, on the basis of seniority, the civic body said Monday.

The EDMC has around 16,000 workers, half of whom are permanent employees.

On September 26, it had decided to begin the process for permanent employment of contractual sanitation workers who were recruited after March 31, 1998.