Sanitation Workers’ Strike in Patna Enters Sixth Day, Other State Municipal Units Join in

Patna: The strike by thousands of Grade-4 daily-wage employees of the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) and safai karamcharis Patna is into its sixth day and the city is coping with an unbearable stench. There are heaps of stinking garbage, animal carcasses lying on road-sides and overflowing drains. However, this is not all. In a protest with a difference, striking employees threw animal carcasses on main roads, near markets, outside the official residence of a Minister and top officers, and in posh residential localities.

The ongoing strike has badly hit the cleaning of garbage and sweeping work in the city. Heaps of garbage can be seen all around Bihar’s capital. Workers are protesting against the state Government's decision to remove them instead of regularising their jobs, which had been their demand for a long time. Despite repeated verbal assurances by top government officers, striking Grade-4 daily- wagers, including sanitation workers, are adamant that they will not relent till their demands are fulfilled.

Suresh Prasad, a road-side tea vendor told NewsClick: "Patna, a smart city in the making, has been turned into a living hell as striking employees have stopped cleaning work since last Monday.” Prasad adds that people have been forced to cover their nose and face with handkerchiefs to avoid the smell with “heaps of garbage and filth scattered all around”.

“We cannot move from one place to another in the heart of Patna without covering our face to get rid of bad smell,” said Rajesh Kamal, a businessman. Kamal complained of “piles of waste”, calling the situation “difficult” as “we have been living in a filthy environment.”

According PMC officials, more than 4000 metric tonnes of garbage has already accumulated in Patna over the past six days since employees began their strike. The district administration warned striking employees, asking them to return to work while hiring daily-wage workers to clear heaps of garbage under police protection. Patna generates nearly 800 metric tonnes of garbage daily.

The administration decided to provide police security to the newly hired daily-wage workers amid apprehensions of an attack by the striking workers. Reports say that in the last two days, striking workers had stopped administrative staff when they reached the office along with the hired labourers.

The PMC has suspended 12 sanitary inspectors and initiated disciplinary proceedings against them.

However, striking employees are adamant to continue their strike until the Government fulfills their old demand of regularisation. They continued with their sit-in (dharna) outside the PMC headquarters at Maurya Lok Complex and shouted slogans against the Government’s anti-workers’ approach.

Two days ago, in a bid to put pressure on the striking workers, PMC authorities lodged an FIR in Kotwali Police Station against six leaders of different unions of the workers for instigating and creating problems in official work. Those named in the FIR including PMC Karamchari Union President Chandra Prajash Singh, Nigam Chaturth Vargiya Karamchari Sangh General Secretary Nand Kishor Das and other leaders including Ramyatan Prasad, Neeraj Kumar, Arjun Prasad and Satish Mishra.

Earlier, the striking workers threw garbage, rotten fish and dead animals on the roads which lead to corporation offices and the office of Patna's Mayor. On February 6, they threw dead animals outside the main gate of the official residence of Bihar Urban Development Minister Suresh Sharma. They also threw garbage outside the residence of Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey and on both sides of the road leading to the official residence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The strike began on Monday, February 3, after the Urban Development Department (UDD) acted on the basis of an order from the office of Lokayukta and directed all urban municipal bodies in the state including the PMC to stop engaging daily-wage workers in group D and outsource staff from February 1.

Since the first day of the strike, which began on Monday, large parts of Patna have been reeking of trash. Door-to-door waste and garbage collection in residential localities, market places and offices has totally stopped.

Chandra Prakash Singh, one of the leaders of the striking unions, said they will not end the strike. “The UDD is hell bent on outsourcing Patna's cleaning service to a few private agencies to benefit some people. We have been demanding them to regularise all 4,500 workers engaged as daily-wage workers. However, the government is against poor daily-wage workers,” he added.

About 90 percent of PMC’s ward councillors are also in favour of regularisation of jobs of daily-wage workers engaged in cleaning work. The PMC board is also in favour of fulfilling the demands of striking employees.

The agitating workers said that hundreds of them have been working for the last 10 years on a daily-wage basis in the hope that the government will regularise their job. The sanitation workers said that they were the real players behind the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan but were mostly left in the lurch.

Latest reports indicate that sanitation workers in all 143 municipal units in Bihar have also joined the strike. Cleaning work is badly affected in Gaya, Munger, Muzaffarpur, Katihar and other towns.

Striking employees got support from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Hindustani Awam Morcha.