PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/Dehradun
The Safai Karmachari Mazdoor Union on Wednesday has threatened a work boycott, hunger strike and complete strike by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) sanitation workers if the State government and civic body fail to address their seven long-pending demands. The president of the union, Sunil Kumar and secretary Dheeraj Bharti flagged their concerns at a press conference held at the Press Club. The union’s demands include implementation of the MCD board’s April 29 resolution approving an honorarium hike of Rs 800 per day for environmental workers and payment to temporary workers for July 2026 at the revised rate.
The union has also sought immediate recruitment of 715 sanitation workers approved by the civic body, equal pay for equal work and early regularisation of workers.
It has demanded that the cut-off year for regularisation be revised from 2018 to 2024. Other demands include restoration of abolished posts in the permanent environmental workers’ cadre by amending the 2015 staffing structure and sanctioning 10,000 permanent environmental worker posts for urban local bodies across Uttarakhand.
Kumar said that sanitation workers had earlier staged an 11-day protest at the MCD premises and later marched to the Secretariat, where a memorandum was submitted to the Dehradun district magistrate. Meetings were also held with Dehradun municipal commissioner Alok Kumar Pandey over the demands. A government-level meeting on August 19 had discussed creation of permanent posts, recruitment against vacancies, regularisation of employees completing 10 years of service, equal wages for outsourced workers and other welfare measures. Kumar said that despite meetings and discussions, several issues have remained unresolved.
When queried, the MCD officials have, however cited financial constraints, saying that the civic body lacks funds to bear the additional cost of the proposed honorarium hike. According to them, the district administration officials also said that such an increase in Dehradun could lead to similar demands from sanitation workers in other urban local bodies.
Unmoved by the civic body’s ‘logic’, Kumar warned that the union would launch the proposed agitation if their demands were not addressed on priority.
