Sanitation workers continue strike even as Kejri returns to Delhi

Meanwhile, Delhi government told the court that while the corporations are taking a “hands-off approach”, it has deputed its public works department’s resources towards collection of garbage.

With a section of them suspending their strike and another deciding to continue it, the striking unions of Municipal Corporation sanitation workers were divided over calling off their stir following their appearance in the High Court today.

But the unions demanded a “permanent solution”.

“The chief minister is playing politics over grants”, said Sanjay Gahlot, president of the Swatantra Mazdoor Vikas Sanyukta Morcha, one of the main unions.

While the sanitation workers claim that a majority of them have not received salaries for January 2016, the corporations said the wages were released in February. “We will share our issues with him”, he added.

Employees of Delhi’s civic bodies have been protesting over the non-payment of salaries for the past few months, and directing their ire at both the Delhi and central governments for the last 10 days.

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation claimed in the court that 40 per cent of its workers from two zones have returned to work and those still on strike were being marked absent and action would be taken against them. To this, senior standing counsel for the Delhi government, Rahul Mehra, today told the court that ESMA had been revoked by the city administration in 2015.

Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has offered Rs. 300 crore loan to the North and East Delhi municipal corporations from DDA to end the deadlock created after indifinte strike by MCD workers. Teachers, doctors, nurses and contractors of the civic bodies have also joined the protest.

The police on Friday wrote a letter to the Delhi government on the ongoing MCD strike, predicting total breakdown of law and order if the strike continued.