BBMP promises sanitation workers wage arrears today

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) promised to clear all pending wages of the pourakarmikas by end of Saturday.

Responding to a protest by hundreds of municipal workers for non-payment of wages, the civic body also assured them they would get their payment by the seventh of each month.

It also sent a proposal to the state government to recognise drivers of garbage auto-rickshaws and loaders as pourakarmikas according to the definition of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act.

About 400 workers from all zones, coming under the umbrella of the BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sanghatane, gathered at the civic body’s head office on Friday and complained that they have not been paid since January this year.

The workers handed a memorandum to the BBMP’s Joint Commissioner for Health and Solid Waste Management, Sarfaraz Khan, detailing the wage arrears in different areas.

The memorandum stated that none of the workers in Sampangirama Nagar had been paid while only 15 out of 98 received their wages in Bharathinagar. Only 50 out of 267 workers in Varthur were given their wages. The BBMP attributed the delay to the cumbersome verification of details of all the workers.

“We’ve done verifying 15,287 workers and will finish verifying the details of the remaining 2,000-odd workers in a month and a half,” Khan said.

Workers complained that biometric details of those serving in the BBMP for the past 15-20 years had been removed while those who had joined in the last few months were included.

The BBMP has asked the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) to probe the inclusion of ghost workers in the biometrics to identify those drawing salaries using fake identities. Khan also said the verification of workers would begin in all zones on Saturday.

Workers also asked the BBMP to issue pay slips to help them keep track of payments made to them.

Earlier, the pourakarmikas threatened to boycott work if BBMP officials, who cited poll duties for payment delays, failed to address their demands.