Bhopal: BMC employees go on indefinite strike, garbage collection goes for a toss     

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Hundreds of employees of Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) went on indefinite strike on Monday bringing sanitation work in state capital to a standstill. Emergency services including water supply and fire have been kept away from the strike and will remain unaffected.  Raising slogans, the striking civic body employees had gathered in groups in different parts of the city including Kolar, Bairagarh  since morning.

BMC commissioner KVS Chodhary has warned the striking employees to return to their work or else action will be initiated. An audio clip of the commissioner is doing round on social media in which he is allegedly heard threatening striking employees of action for they fail to resume the duty.  

Besides, in a video circulating on social media, assistant health officer (AHO) is also heard using abusive words at the striking employees. The officer further says that strike does not yield any result as farmer fought against government and 300 died but nothing happened. The striking employees may lose their job if they continue with it, the AHO is heard threatening the workers.

Samyukta Morcha of Employees Unions general secretary Ashok Verma said, that strike will continue till six-point demands including promotion of BMC employees and regularization of the daily wagers are not addressed. “Today, garbage has not been collected from the entire Bhopal. All 1400 garbage collection vehicles they remained off the road following employees’ strike. However, of the Emergency services like water supply, fire extinguishing work etc will remain unaffected,” said Verma.

Four days back, 12 employee unions had demonstrated at ISBT for their six-point charter of demands. The employees had warned to go in an indefinite strike from December 12 if their demands were not addressed by then. The municipal authorities and public representatives had met the office bearers of the organizations but they could not deter the aggrieved employees to defer their protest.