Sanitation workers of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) called off their five-day-old strike on Tuesday after the authorities agreed to most of their demands.
The ‘safai karamcharis’ will rejoin work tomorrow and have a major task ahead – to clean up the roads of East Delhi on which they have been dumping garbage for the past few days over non-payment of salaries for months.
The strike had started on Friday and caused chaos on the streets which were filled with garbage by municipal workers.
The dumping of garbage by municipal workers to highlight their plight caused traffic jams and threatened public health.
Areas affected included Patparganj, the constituency of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Geeta Colony, Laxmi Nagar, Karkardooma, Vikas Marg, Jagatpuri and some areas of North Delhi as well.
The three civic bodies – New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) – have run into financial rough weather, with both NDMC and EDMC suffering losses. Only SDMC has so far managed to keep itself out of the red.
The capital’s new government, of the Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal, had refused to come to the aid and asked the BJP-ruled municipal corporations to instead approach the central government.
Today, Kejriwal wrote a letter to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and reiterated his demand to hand over the reins of the municipal corporations to his government.
