VIJAYAWADA: Municipality workers took out a rally from Tummalapalli Kalakshetram to Dharna Chowk against outsourcing their work and contracts to private bodies and demanded better employment facilities on Thursday. Their charter of demands included removal of Government Order 279, allowing outsourcing of work, fearing privatisation of a government body’, converting contract workers to permanent employees.
It also included minimum salary of Rs 18,000, General Provident Fund (GPF) accounts for skilled and semi-skilled workers, removal of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), minimum wages for school sweepers and toilet workers, and removal of ‘intrusive’ and a system that enables ‘disrespectful’ real-time monitoring of workers among others.
They pointed out that the Swachh Bharat Mission and Swachh Andhra mission could be possible only because of them and “yet they had been left in the lurch,” they said. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) joined the rally expressing their solidarity with the workers and pointed out the non-registration of promised lands for the poor and middle class.
CPM leader CH Baburao said, “The government had promised lands to 25,000 poor and middle-class families in Sing Nagar decades ago. They haven’t fulfilled it till date,” he said.“People have been agitating over the issue since 2016, but the government is apathetic to their cause. MPs and MLAs care only about their agendas and have no sympathy for the people’s needs,” he added.