BENGALURU: On the very day Development Minister K J George spoke of measures undertaken for pourakarmikas, a joint committee for pourakarmikas’ rights, slammed the government’s decision to regularise only 4,000 contract workers here on Saturday.Members of the Janti Kriya Samiti threatened to go on a “complete strike” if their demands were not met after 15 days.
They claimed there were over 20,000 pourakarmikas working in the city who needed to be regularised. Their other complaints included — several workers’ salaries not paid for up to eight months, contractors misusing the biometric system.N Narayan, head of the samiti, said an amount totalling to `212 crore, cut from the workers’ salaries in lieu of insurance cover, was yet to be deposited into their accounts.
Minister George’s comments were in stark contrast to those of the samiti members. Speaking after the inauguration of BBMP’s clean up drive across the city, he said steps had been taken to make payments of `17,500 every month directly to the workers. In addition, he added that they would be provided with uniforms, a push cart and free lunch from Indira Canteens.