Traffic was thrown out of gear in some locations in the city on Tuesday when municipal employees took out a “begging bowl march,” as garbage continued to pile up in many areas on the seventh day of their strike.
North and East Corporation employees, including sanitation workers, doctors, teachers, nurses, paramedical staff and engineers are on strike, protesting against delay in payment of their salaries.
Even South Delhi Municipal Corporation sanitation workers have struck work showing solidarity with their co-workers.
Patients are not being examined at municipal hospitals, and almost every school under the North and East Corporations have been shut due to the agitation.
After this “katora march,” the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Sanitation Employees’ Unions have decided to stage a “chakka jam”, and block NH 24 on Wednesday.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has now claimed to have credited salaries to all its employees for November.
But the protesting associations said they would continue the strike unless the municipal corporation and the city government find a “permanent” solution to the impasse on funds for their salaries. “We will give salaries to all the employees for December within a few days. Then we will meet these employees’ unions and urge them to end the strike,” said a senior official with North Corporation.
Employees are all set to ratchet up the protests. “It seems like nobody is bothered about us. This apathetic attitude of the AAP government and the municipal corporations is insulting to thousands of sanitation employees who work hard every day to keep the city clean. And they are not paid salaries,” said Rajender Mewati, general secretary of United Front of MCD Employees. “Tomorrow we are planning to disrupt traffic at NH 24. May be then we will be heard,” he added.
Published 02 February 2016, 20:54 IST